

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 











































































































































































' 



































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































■ 
































































St. Petersburg 

Through the Stereoscope 



UNDERWOOD 

& 

UNDERWOOD 

New York and London 





























complete Russian “ Tour ” 
consists of one hundred original 
stereographs of the more important places 
in Russia, arranged in the same order a 
tourist might visit them. M. S. Emery 
acts as a personal guide in an accompany¬ 
ing book of over two hundred pages. 
In this book are also given ten maps of 
our new patented system, specially devised 
for the purpose of showing the route and 
definitely locating the stereographs. Ed¬ 
ucators say that by the proper use of 
stereographs, with these maps, people may 
get genuine experiences of travel. 



/ 


r. r J - Iff!! ^ 

St. Petersburg; 


A Part of Underwood & Underwood’s 
Stereoscopic Tour Through 
Russia 


PERSONALLY CONDUCTED BY 

M'.'SbbM F.RY 

AUTHOR OF (( HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES ” 



PUBLISHED BY 

UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD 

NEW YORK LONDON 

OTTAWA, KAN. TORONTO, CAN. 


THF LIBRARY 4*F 
©ON GSESS, 

Two Copt» Receive 

MAR 39 1902 

CorvweMT ENT we 

Auv.H-'^ > 

CLASS £tXX& Wo* 

T-?! *l*U O 

copy a__ 


Copyright, 1902, by 
UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD 
New York and London 
[Entered at Stationers’ Hall] 


Stereographs copyrighted in the United States 
and foreign countries 


* •■.it • 

« » ‘ t te. 

*« << * c 

* ‘ « « t c 

♦ACC it 


»* < «•« ♦ 

r c c * « 

c t «■ c c • « 

C fr « ft « 

• e * « o « 


Map System 

Patented in the United States, August 21, 1900 
Patented in Great Britain, March 22, 1900 
Patented in France, March 26, 1900. S. G. D. G. 
Switzerland, -f- Patent Number 21.211 
Patents applied for in other countries 

ft »«»•• c tee 

c o o *1 « . _ 

c c c C O ft € 

**' * 'AlPrights reserved 


7 ”) K J 


I 


••• • 








RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


21 


A WORD BEFORE STARTING. 

Many years ago, when* tea was a rare luxury, an old 
sea-captain sent to a friend a small parcel of precious 
Oolong, thinking to give great pleasure. But the thanks 
of the recipient had a doubtful ring, so the captain asked 
how the family had enjoyed the gift. 

“ Well, you see, we weren’t quite sure how to cook 
it,” was the apologetic confession; “ but we boiled it 
tender and ate it for greens. It’s a curious taste, isn’t it ? ” 

We are all likely to make similar mistakes in our use 
—and, consequently, in our valuation—of stereographs. 
In order, therefore, to get from our Russian tour all the 
pleasure and profit it can give, let us take a few minutes 
in preparation for the journey, and see:— 

a. What is a stereograph ? 

b. How stereographs should be used. 

What is a Stereograph ? 

There is a fundamental difference between an or¬ 
dinary photograph and a stereograph. The photograph 
is taken by means of a single lens-opening in the camera. 
It shows a building, for instance, exactly as we should see 
the same building with one eye closed. But in actual 
vision we use two eyes; the retina of the right eye re¬ 
ceives one impression, the retina of the left eye receives 
another impression, not the exact duplicate of the first; 
our consciousness combines the two impressions into one; 


22 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


what we practically “ see ” is a composite of the two 
retinal impressions. 

It is easy to make a simple, experimental test of the 
difference between one’s impressions of the form of a solid 
object received by the two eyes. Hold your right hand 
straight out at arm’s length in front of you, the palm 
toward the left, the back of the hand toward the right. 
Close the left eye and look at the hand. You see almost 
nothing of the palm, but you do see something of the 
surface of the back of the hand. Hold the arm in exactly 
the same position; close the right eye and look with the 
left only. Now you see little or nothing of the back of 
the hand, but a part of the palm is visible. Now look with 
both eyes, as usual. You see a part of the back of the 
hand and a part of the palm as well; in fact, you see part 
way around the hand. That is to say, you “ see ” a com¬ 
posite of the varying reports sent in to the brain by the 
two eyes, and the result is that the hand looks solid and 
substantial. It seems to occupy space in three directions, 
height, width and thickness. 

A single photograph of a hand at the distance and 
in the position indicated above would not give precisely 
this effect of solidity, of space-occupancy, of tangible 
reality. The photographic camera has only one eye. 
Just as a one-eyed man becomes accustomed to his lim¬ 
itations, and learns to piece out his incomplete vision 
with the help of memory and comparison of other ex¬ 
periences, guessing at solidity on the hint of suggestive 
shadows here and there, which could, he feels sure, be 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


23 


caused only by certain changes in the direction of the 
surface of a thing, so we find ordinary photographs, 
in spite of their one-eyed vision, immensely suggestive 
of the experiences of direct vision. Photographs are 
good things. 

But stereographs are far better whenever the subject 
under consideration is one where we wish to experience 
the sensation of actually looking at the things themselves. 
For what we have in a stereograph of any given scene 
is a presentation to each eye, separately, of just what that 
eye would see when the observer occupied one given 
standpoint. The differences between the observations of 
the two eyes, one seeing a little farther around on the 
right side of things, the other seeing farther around their 
left side, can be partially discovered by a careful com¬ 
parison of the two parts of any particular stereograph 
in which some object in the foreground is outlined against 
some object in the background; but, if we thus examine 
one of the stereographs, merely holding it in the hand 
and looking at its complementary parts as we would look 
at two photographs pasted on one card, and suppose that 
we are getting the good of the stereograph, we are mak¬ 
ing the old mistake of treating tea leaves like spinach. 
The use of the stereoscope is necessary in order that we 
may receive at the same time the two overlapping im¬ 
pressions through the two eyes, and so once more get the 
effect of three dimensions in space,—height, width, thick¬ 
ness or depth. 

Try an experiment with one of these Russian stereo- 


24 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


graphs, for example, No. 90, “The Birth of Jesus;— 
Vladimir Cathedral, Kief.” First, take a look at the 
card, as you hold it in your hand. Yes, it seems at first 
as if the two prints were absolutely alike. But notice the 
halo about the head of the Virgin Mother. In the left 
print there is slight separation between this halo and the 
marble capital to the left. In the right-hand print you ' 
notice twice the interval between the halo and the capital. 
This shows that the picture on the right was taken by a 
camera-lens set farther to the right. 

It would seem as if such small variations could make 
little difference. But place the stereograph in the sliding- 
rack of the stereoscope and, adjusting its distance accord¬ 
ing to your own eyesight, look out through the lenses. 

Is it not like magic,—the way in which you see now 
the real cathedral, with that cavernous distance in beyond 
the holy screen? Now you see that the painting of the 
birth of Jesus, instead of being the central panel in a row 
of three (as it at first looked to be), is away back, behind 
the screen; you are seeing it at a respectf ul, reverential 
distance, through an opening in the sacred portal. 

The two prints, while held in hand, were excellent 
photographs, but, while viewed with the naked eye, they 
showed us only height and width, leaving us to infer the 
dimension of depth as best we could,—and we made poor 
work of it! They entirely declined to give us any ade¬ 
quate impression of depth. This impression the stere¬ 
oscope has supplied by making for us a “ composite ” of 
the slightly varying messages received by our two eyes. 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


25 


The stereoscope does this. It does still more. 

When the stereograph, in its sliding-rack, is brought 
to the right position to suit individual eyesight and is 
properly seen through the obliquely set stereoscopic 
lenses, the impression made on the eyes by any given de¬ 
tail is that of the full-size object at the full, actual dis¬ 
tance. For instance, suppose a stereograph shows a man 
who was actually thirty feet away from the camera at 
the moment of exposure. His image exists on the print 
only a fraction of an inch high. But, when that tiny 
image, seen through the stereoscopic lens at the distance of 
a few inches, delivers its message to the eyes, it has the 
effect of the very message the eyes would receive from 
the full-size man at the thirty-foot distance. The possi¬ 
bility of this correspondence of impressions made by a 
large object at a long distance and a small object at a 
short distance is something readily observed. A common 
letter-envelope, held up at arm’s length, may easily hide 
from view a picture twelve times its size on the wall of 
the room. It may even fill the same focal angle as a 
whole building at a still greater distance outside the win¬ 
dow. In the case of our stereographs, the fact is that a 
printed figure a fraction of an inch high, a few inches 
distant, fills the same space in the eye as a figure five or 
six feet tall at the distance of the real man from the 
operator’s camera at the moment of taking the negative. 
The result of the fact is that when we look through the 
lenses of 'the stereoscope we practically look also through 
the stereograph as if it were a transparent screen , and 


26 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


we see the real objects, full-size, as far distant from us as 
they were from the camera when the stereograph was 
taken. 

There are some people to whom it appears at first 
that only miniatures of objects are shown in the stereo¬ 
scope. This is due mainly to their constant remembrance 
of the small card a few inches from their eyes. They 
modify what they might see by what they think they 
ought to see. If such people will take note for a time 
of the fact that they see nothing on the surface of the 
photographic prints so close to their eyes, that they see 
everything back of these prints as actually as if they were 
looking through transparent screens or windows, then 
they may get impressions of objects or places in the 
stereoscope as large as they would if looking at the orig¬ 
inal scene through windows of the same size and at the 
same distance. 

Stereographs, then, can give us (color only excepted) 
the very same visual impressions that we should receive 
in the presence of the actual things. 

Moreover, a stereograph, properly seen through the 
stereoscope, takes us into the presence of a certain scene 
in a sense fairly analogous to that in which the telephone 
brings a friend close to us. The intermediate processes 
could be traced if we had space, making a most interesting 
study. Of course, in the telephone a friend’s body is not 
brought to us; nevertheless we get a definite sense that he, 
his real self, is ,brought near us. Not only is he near for 
all purposes of communication through the ear, but we 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


27 


feel that we are in his very presence. Our feelings are, 
our experience is, not that we are in the presence of a 
telephone, which gives out certain articulate sounds, but 
in the presence of a human soul. 

Now it is in an analogous way that we may feel that 
we have been transported to the distant place which is rep¬ 
resented to us in the stereoscope. Our material body is 
in our own chair at home, but our thinking, feeling self, 
our real self, is in the presence of a place in Russia. The 
reason why our experience is that a person comes to us 
in the telephone while ive go to the place in the stere¬ 
oscope is this—What we see, more than anything else, 
gives us our sense of location. When we use the tele¬ 
phone we see a room about us, and, consequently, we get 
a distinct sense of our location there. But the testimony 
of our ear at the telephone is that our friend is close to 
us; we can’t disregard this any more than we can dis¬ 
regard the testimony of our eyes. His voice sounds as if 
he were near, and that is sufficient to make us feel as if 
he were near. But since, in fixing our own location, what 
we see is more important than what we hear, our expe¬ 
rience is that we stay in our room, and our friend comes 
near to us there. When we use the stereoscope, on the 
other hand, the hood about our eyes shuts our room away 
from us, shuts out the America or England that may 
be about us, and shuts us in with the hill or the city or 
the people standing out behind the stereoscopic card. If 
now we know by the help of maps where on the earth’s 
surface this hill or city or group of people is located, then 


28 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


we may have a distinct sense of our own location there. 
The conditions are that we shall look intently, and look 
with some thought not only of the location of what is 
before us, but also of what we know (from the study 
of the maps) must be on our right and left or behind us. 

The best evidence that we do get such an experience 
when we use stereoscopic views properly, is the fact that, 
ever afterwards, we find ourselves going back in memory 
over mountains or seas to the place in the distant country 
where the real scene is located, much more than to the 
room in America or England where we saw the stere¬ 
oscopic scene. After all, to get such an experience by 
means of the stereoscope is little, if any, more extraor¬ 
dinary, when we think of it, than our experience in con¬ 
nection with the telephone. 

Now, whenever we do get this sense of location by 
the stereoscope it means that we have gained not merely 
accurate visual impressions of certain places in Russia, 
such as we should get if we went there in body, but also 
part of the very same feelings we should experience there. 
The only difference between the feelings gotten in the 
one case and the other is a difference of quantity or in¬ 
tensity, not a difference of kind. Therefore, the expe¬ 
riences we may gain through the stereoscope are not to 
be considered as mere make-believe experiences of being 
in distant places in Russia,—not substitutes for real ex¬ 
periences there. The representations of parts of Russia 
which are to be before us in the stereoscope will be sub¬ 
stitutes for the real Russia, but the feelings they may stir 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 29 

in us, as well as the visual impressions they may give us, 
are of the very same warp and woof as those gotten by 
going to Russia in the body. 

In this beginning of a new century we hear much 
about modern advances in the solution of the problem of 
transportation. Electric railways, automobiles,—the out¬ 
look toward possible future developments is something 
marvelous. But our possession which most resembles the 
magic travelling-carpet of Aladdin in the old story is the 
stereoscope. 

Nobody in these days needs argument for the desira¬ 
bility of travel. We travel to “ see things,” to enlarge our 
personal experience of the world and its people, to gather 
in materials for thought and for growth in thought, and 
to increase our immediate and prospective resources of 
happiness. “ Culture,” says Miss Blow in her Study of 
Dante, “ is the process by which the individual reproduces 
in himself the experience of the race.” 

The journey we are about to take, by the help of the 
stereoscope, through the heart of Russia, is one which can 
give us stores of delightful memories; at the same time it 
can—if we choose—be the occasion and incentive of a 
long course of reading and study. All we already know 
of Russian history,* politics, literature and social life 
will naturally make the sights we see' more full of mean¬ 
ing and charm. On the other hand, every place we 
see in the land of the Czar, as we cross it from the 
Baltic to the Black Sea, will increase our healthy hunger 


* A brief summary of Russian history is given on page 7 for convenient reference. 



30 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


for a still fuller outlook into this world of ours and into 
the lives of the people, so like us, so unlike us, who share 
with ourselves the enjoyments and the responsibilities 
of being alive today. 

How to Use Stereographs. 

a. Experiment with the sliding-rack which holds 
the stereograph until you find the distance that suits the 
focus of your own eyes. This distance varies greatly 
with different people. 

b. Have a strong, steady light on the stereograph. 
This is often best obtainable by sitting with the back 
towards window or lamp, letting the light fall over one’s 
shoulder on the face of the stereograph. 

c. Hold the stereoscope with the hood close against 
the forehead and temples, shutting off entirely all im¬ 
mediate surroundings. The less you are conscious of 
things close about you, the more strong will be your feel¬ 
ing of actual presence in the scenes you are studying. 

d. First, read the statements in regard to the loca¬ 
tion on the appropriate maps, of a place you are about 
to see, so as to have already in mind, when you look at a 
given view, just where you are and what is before you. 
After looking at the scene for the purpose of getting your 
location and the points of the compass clear, then read the 
explanatory comments on it. You will like to read por¬ 
tions of the text again after once looking at the stereo¬ 
graph, and then return to the view. Repeated returns 
to the text may be desirable, where there are many details 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


31 


to be discovered. But read through once the text that 
bears on the location of each stereograph before taking 
up the stereograph in question ; in this way you will know 
just where you are, and the feeling of actual presence on 
the ground will be much more real and satisfactory. On 
the maps you will find given the exact location of each 
successive standpoint (at the apex of the red V in each 
case) and the exact range of the view obtained from that 
standpoint (shown in each case by the space included 
between the spreading arms of the same V). The map 
system is admirably clear and satisfactory, giving an 
accurate idea of the progress of the journey, and really 
making one feel, after a little, quite at home among the' 
streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow. 

e. Go slowly. Tourists are often reproached for 
their nervously hurried and superficial ways of glancing 
at sights in foreign lands. Travel by means of stereo¬ 
graphs encourages leisurely and thoughtful enjoyment 
of whatever is worth enjoying. You may linger as long 
as you like in any particularly interesting spot, without 
fear of being left behind by train or steamboat. Indeed, 
you may return to the same spot as many times as you 
like, without any thought of repeated, expense! Herein 
lies one of the chief delights of Russia-in-stereographs,— 
its easy accessibility. Edward Everett Hale, who has a 
genius for common sense, said once in a chapter of advice 
on how to travel:— 

“ Above all, see twice whatever is worth seeing. 

Do not forget this rule—we remember what we see 


32 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


twice. ... At Malines—what we call Mechlin— 
our train stopped nearly an hour. At the station a 
crowd of guides were shouting that there was time to 

go and see Rubens’ picture of -, at the church 

of-. This seemed to us a droll contrast to the 

cry at our stations, ‘ Fifteen minutes for refresh¬ 
ments ! ’ It offered such aesthetic refreshment in the 
place of carnal oysters that, purely for frolic, we went 
to see. We were hurried across some sort of square 
into the church, saw the picture, admired it, came 
away, and forgot it—clear and clean forgot it! . . . 

I do not know what it was about any more than you 
do. But if I had gone to that church the next day, 
and seen it again, I should have fixed it forever on 
my memory.” 

We all know how great is the pleasure of recalling 
before the mind's eye places or things that have once filled 
us with wonder and admiration. Stereographs make it 
easily possible to call up such scenes over and over again, 
not only to the mind’s eye, but actually to our corporeal 
eyes, giving us precisely the same sensations as at first, 
only enriched and made fuller of meaning by virtue of 
the thinking we have done meanwhile. We all know 
books that we have read over and over, seeing in them 
each time more than we saw before, because we have 
taken to them each time a richer mind to do the reading. 
So repeated visits to the same place often surprise us 
with revelations of interesting and significant things 
quite overlooked in a first visit. And Russia is well worth 
such re-visiting. 






RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


47 


ST. PETERSBURG. 

We go now to the land of Peter the Great,—to the city which 
he built, almost by fiat, on the banks of the Neva river. The 
country between Viborg and St. Petersburg is a far-stretching 
level, largely made up of dismal marsh lands; it seems the last 
region imaginable in which to find a great modern city the size 
of Philadelphia, a city renowned all over the world as the centre 
of the Russian national life, a city where military schemes are 
shaped affecting the affairs of all the other great peoples of the 
world,—in short, the capital of the Czar. 

A word or so should be said abort the maps we are to use 
in connection with St. Petersburg. There is a general map of the 
city; a second map on a larger scale of the central section or 
the most important part of the city; a third map of the city and 
its environs, showing the city on a very small scale and some 
neighboring places we are to see, such as Tsarskoe Selo and 
Peterhof, and fourth, a plan of the Czar’s palace and grounds at 
Peterhof. We should always read the Explanations printed in 
red on these maps until we understand perfectly the system by 
which the stereographed scenes are located. 

For some time we shall use only the general map and the 
sectional map of St. Petersburg. Most of the places we are to 
see in the city will be indicated on the general map, but all the 
places we see in the central section of the city will be marked 
out more clearly on the special map of this section. 

Taking the general map we can quickly get in mind the main 


48 RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

physical features of the city. The Neva river winds in from the 
east, and in three main branches empties into the Gulf of Finland 
on the west. The streets are very irregular, so we shall have to 
note our positions on the map carefully in order to get our bear¬ 
ings when on the ground. 

We are to stand first in the Nevsky Prospect. Find the 
Admiralty building, almost in the center of the large map. It 
is marked 251 on the larger map and Admiralty on the sectional 
map. Running off to the right from this, a little south of east, 
is the Nevsky Prospect. We are to stand near the red circle 
enclosing the figure 8, and look toward the Admiralty; that is, 
nearly west. For a time it will be wise to use both maps. 

Most cities have their favorite promenades, where the finer 
shops are found, and where in the fashionable season, society’s 
carriages go by in elegant state. In St. Petersburg that charac¬ 
teristic street is the Nevsky Prospect (Perspective of the Neva). 

8. Nevsky Prospect, the Principal Street of St. Petersburg. 

Just now, on a midsummer noon, we find the street com¬ 
paratively quiet, like any fashionable promenade in the unfashion¬ 
able season. But, since we are spared the mental distraction of 
trying to take in all the gay details of the crowded Prospect as 
it appears in winter, carriages and sledges dashing by drawn by 
magnificent Orloff horses, officers and diplomats, court beauties, 
Cossack guards, perhaps even the Czar and the Czarina on their 
way to the Winter Palace at the farther end of the avenue,—we 
can now have eyes for the street itself. 

As we know from our map, we are looking nearly west here, 
from the corner of the Imperial Library toward the Admiralty or 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


49 


Navy Department. It is the slender, gilded spire of the Admiralty 
that we see away at the head of the Prospect. The street is an 
unbroken level and almost perfectly straight for three miles of its 
length, from the Admiralty to the Moscow railway station, and its 
width, as we see, is something imposing too. It is one hundred 
feet from building to building across the street. The car-tracks 
down the middle of the roadway are paved with cobble-stones; 
spaces to the right and left of the car-tracks are in many places 
paved with wood. The spaces next to us, along the low side¬ 
walks, are left for hired carriages and carts. The low sun lays 
long, horizontal shadows across the sidewalks, even now at noon, 
making us realize that we are far up towards the north pole. 
We are, in fact, in about the same latitude as Dyea and the Chil- 
coot Pass. 

The shops opposite here, on the sunny (north) side of the 
Prospect, are the more elegant and expensive. If we wish to be 
very luxurious we can have our lunch at one of the swell res¬ 
taurants, ordering fish soup made of sterlet at five dollars a 
pound, or oysters, tiny ones, at twelve and one-half cents apiece. 
If we wish to do our shopping on a more modest scale, we ought 
to explore this long, two-story building here at our left. It ex¬ 
tends seven hundred feet along the south side of the Prospect, 
and still farther on the cross street at right angles to the Prospect. 
It is the Gostinny Dvor or Great Bazar, a sort of perpetual fair, 
or collocation of retail shops,—over five hundred of them,— 
for almost every conceivable sort of goods. At Christmas time 
the space we see between the building and the sidewalk will be 
filled with other temporary booths, gay with Christmas trees, 
cakes and toys; and, again, just before Palm Sunday, the booths 


50 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


reappear full of pussy-willow twigs, verba (the accepted sub¬ 
stitute for palm branches) and gifts for Easter. 

That tall building straight ahead with the signal tower is 
the City Hall. There must be a watchman somewhere on its 
balcony this very minute, pacing his beat and keeping a lookout 
for signs of fire. The watch is kept up day and night, and 
the location of any outbreak discovered is indicated to the fire 
department by means of those signals,—painted boards by day, 
colored lanterns by night. 

That small building just this side of the City Hall is a 
chapel where the devout call for a minute to cross themselves 
before a favorite ikon or sacred picture. The Russo-Greek 
Church, unlike the Roman Catholic, does not encourage the use 
of crucifixes or other sculptured images to assist devotion, but 
the churches are full of painted pictures or ikons, partly cov¬ 
ered with metal; the face and hands of the person represented 
are usually all of the painted image that is shown. The chapel 
just ahead has double attractions for our fellow-passengers on 
the Prospect, for in this particular chapel, all summer long, the 
priest in charge keeps a great bowl of water and a dipper, where 
thirsty mortals may help themselves, leaving in another bowl 
any small coin they happen to have, as an offering to the church. 
If we were to go in, it would be quite allowable for us to make 
change from the bowl, in case we had not the right coin at hand! 

The people we meet now walking on the street are distinctly 
the ordinary working people. In St. Petersburg everybody who 
makes any pretensions at all to social importance rides about 
his affairs. Small shop-keepers and clerks on slender salaries 
manage some way to keep up a droschky and “appearances.” 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


51 


Indeed, the long distances and the cheap carriage hire make 
riding an easy luxury for the traveller. We can take a seat in 
one of the queer little two-story street-cars, running always in 
groups of threes, down the middle of the street alongside the tall, 
electric-light poles; or we can hire a carriage; better still, if 
we want to be as Russian as possible, we can hire a droschky, 
like these two that are just about passing where we stand. 
Russian cab and droschky drivers are eager for customers, and 
will take us any ordinary distance’for ten or fifteen cents. The 
small wheels and the low-hung body make the droschky look like 
a toy phaeton. The horses, yes, the horses in these public 
droschkys do look unkempt and spiritless, but they really have 
plenty of spirit. There was never yet a droschky horse that 
could not go like the wind, if required, and at least appear to 
enjoy it. 

Before we bargain with our isvostschick or droschky driver, 
let us turn for a moment directly about from where we have 
been standing and walk a few rods back, past the Imperial 
Library, to an open square where a monument to Catherine II 
stands in front of the Alexandra Theatre. According to our 
maps, we shall then be looking south. 

9. Monument of Catherine^IFand Alexandra Theatre. 

What have we here? Apparently a party of school-girls, 
around a buxom wet-nurse (“ Kormilitza ”), gorgeous in her 
diadem-shaped cap of velvet with gold embroidery,—the badge 
of her calling,—and the big bead necklace which she and the 
women of her class are always proud to own. She is evidently 
not at all averse to being admired. And where is her special 


52 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


charge? Perhaps it is the baby carried by the little girl, back 
near the monument. We see one little girl here with a kerchief 
tied over her head who likely belongs outside of St. Petersburg, 
for that is a peasant fashion. The little fellow just behind the 
nurse has half a mind to be afraid of us. 

The base of this monument is of Finland granite like that 
we saw used so freely in Helsingfors. Russia has a passion for 
monuments, and it is well that one of her grand duchies is rich 
in quarries. The colossal figure surmounting the monument is, 
of course, Catherine II, the “ Semiramis of the North,” the re¬ 
markable woman who was ruling over Russia during the time of 
Washington and Franklin,—an imperious beauty, a blue-stocking 
and a long-headed politician, all in one. The figures placed 
about the pedestal are those of distinguished Russians of Cath¬ 
erine’s time. Among them, along with generals and statesmen, 
is Derzhavin; one at least of his poems is well known in its 
English translation:— 

“ O, Thou Eternal One, whose Presence bright 
All space doth occupy, all motion guide.” 

Another of the figures is that of the Princess Dashkoff, the 
first president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and her¬ 
self an author. 

This little square looks peaceful enough today, full of chil¬ 
dren and posy-beds, but it has seen ghastly sights in its time. 
In the middle of the eighteenth century, while Elizabeth (the 
daughter of Peter the Great, and the aunt of Catherine’s hus¬ 
band) was Empress, one of the most beautiful and nobly born 
of the ladies of the court indulged in too free comments on 
Her Majesty’s love affairs. She was brought here and whipped 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


53 


in the presence of a great crowd of people, then banished from 
the country. They had rough ways of discouraging scandal¬ 
mongers in those old days. 

The Alexandra Theatre, over at the farther side of the 
square, holds the past and the present together. Usually its 
stage is devoted to contemporary Russian or German comedy, 
but now and then it revives some of the very dramas that 
Catherine herself wrote, in the old times when she was the 
greatest woman in Europe. In Russia today the government 
helps support the theatres, interesting itself in the quality of the 
representations to the extent of appropriating funds for schools 
where actors and dancers are systematically taught their busi¬ 
ness. 

And now, without keeping our droschky longer waiting, 
suppose we give ourselves into the care of the isvostschick, and 
let him take us down to the Winter Palace. No,—there is still 
one more sight we must first see in this neighborhood; that is, 
the bronze statues decorating the bridge, over which the Nevsky 
Prospect crosses the Fontanka Canal. St. Petersburg has sev¬ 
eral fine canals, forming convenient transportation ways across 
the city and adding a great deal to its beauty. Peter the Great 
took a great fancy to such water-ways during his visit to Hol¬ 
land, and imported the idea. This particular canal was con¬ 
structed to carry water to the fountains in Peter’s summer 
garden,—hence its name. Our next position can be seen on the 
maps, slightly to the right of Alexander Square. 

io. Allegorical Statue, Man Conquering the Brute; Fon= 
tanka Bridge. 

This bridge (it is sometimes called the Anitchkoff Bridge, 


54 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


from an old palace near by) is now almost in the middle of the 
city, but one hundred years ago it was in the very outskirts of 
the capital. In the time of Alexander I it was made a rule that 
no incomer should be allowed to pass over, without leaving his 
name on record with the bridge keeper. The story is told that, 
at one time, respect for the rule had waned to such a point that 
passers-by made up jocose names for registry, merely to tease 
the recording clerk. This would never do. Respect for the 
law must be maintained. The officer in charge was instructed 
to detain in custody any person whose registration was suspected 
as not genuine. The first victim of the new regulations chanced 
to be an imperial comptroller called by a queer mixture of Russian 
and German, “ Baltazar Baltazarovitch Kampenhausen ”; the 
gate-keeper was sure this was a joke, and made the high digni¬ 
tary wait, fuming with indignation, while his right to the pro¬ 
cessional name was being investigated. 

There are four of these magnificent bronzes ornamenting 
the stone bridge, all differing in the poses of the man and the 
horse; and St. Petersburg is proud of them as the work of a 
Russian sculptor, Baron Klodt. See how finely the spirited 
vigor of animal nature and the calm, over-mastering strength 
of human nature are brought out! The angry beast might almost 
be Mazeppa’s steed in the old story. 

“ Bring forth the horse! The horse was brought. 

In truth, he was a noble steed, 

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, 

That looked as though the speed of thought 
Were in his limbs ; but he was wild, 

Wild as the wild deer and untaught, 

With spur and bridle undefiled,— 

’T was but a day he had been caught. 




RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


55 


And, snorting, with erected mane. 

And struggling fiercely, but in vain, 

In the full foam of wrath and dread 
To me the desert-born was led.” 

And, when we come to think of it, it is natural that Byron’s 
description should fit this wild horse figured by a Russian 
sculptor, for the Mazeppa of the old story was a Cossack chief 
in the days of Peter the Great. 

But here in St. Petersburg we are constantly reminded that 
a vast deal of nature is yet untamed. The very waters that flow 
under this bridge are a menace to the city, for the whole town 
is built on a low marsh, and inundations have more than once 
brought disaster. North-west gales blowing up the Gulf of Fin¬ 
land have more than once sent calamitous high tides rolling 
back into the city. There is a spot close by here, on the wall of 
the Anitchkoff Palace, where a mark is set, showing the point 
to which the waters rose in 1824,—almost fourteen feet above 
their normal level. 

Now we will turn once more down the Nevsky Prospect, 
pass again by the square opening into the Prospect, where 
Catherine’s statue stands before the Alexandra Theatre, drive 
down the broad avenue, alongside the great Bazaar and by the 
Town Hall with its signal tower, past rows of shops gorgeous 
with pictorial signs and with lettering in the quaint Russian 
alphabet,—until we come to the Bolschaya Morskaya, a street 
which crosses the Nevsky Prospect near its head, and which leads 
over to the Winter Palace of the Czar. On the maps we follow 
back along the Nevsky Prospect toward the left, past our two 
former positions, until we come to the Bolschaya Morskaya. 


56 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


We shall take our stand now on this street where it crosses the 
Nevsky Prospect and look north. 

n. Bolschaya Morskaya. 

Here, as it happens at this particular time, we must halt our 
droschky, for the street has been cleared in readiness for the 
passage of the Czar and his guest (August, 1897) the German 
Emperor. The Czar often goes driving in the most simple, 
unostentatious fashion, without guard and without ceremony; 
but, when he does choose to appear in state, he receives the most 
punctilious public respect. The Russian colors that we see fly¬ 
ing everywhere are red, white and blue, but usually arranged 
in parallel stripes, the blue in the middle, as we see in the 
banners that float from the buildings here and from the tall 
electric-light poles along the middle of the street. The German 
colors, black, white and red, are flying too, in compliment to 
Kaiser Wilhelm. 

The better sort of streets in St. Petersburg are perpetually 
being swept by men like the one we see here with his long 
broom and his dust basket. 

Aren’t these sign-boards fascinating things? Bewildering 
too, for the characters of the Russian alphabet are just suf¬ 
ficiently suggestive of English, so that it seems as if we must 
be able to make them out. At the same time they are just 
sufficiently flavored with queer, unfamiliar marks to baffle 
us entirely. Meanwhile, not being preoccupied by any notion 
of what sounds the characters represent, we have all the better 
a chance to appreciate their really remarkable beauty as deco¬ 
rative shapes and patterns. Printed in gold on backgrounds of 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


57 


rich red, green and blue, or in color on a gold background, they 
are a delight to the eye every time we see them. Tradition 
says that the Christian missionaries St. Cyril and St. Metho¬ 
dius, in the ninth century, invented this alphabet, or, rather, 
adapted it from the Greek. Peter the Great revised it in his own 
day. It is difficult to find anything in Russia which is not con¬ 
nected in some way with Peter the Great. 

After royalty has gone by, this crowd along the sidewalks 
will disperse. Then we can move on, through that rather low, 
heavy archway just ahead, into the great Palace Square. After 
crossing the square we shall look back toward this archway, 
that is, toward the south-east. The sectional map will give our 
position more clearly. 

12. Monument to Alexander I, Arch of Triumph and the 
Staab Building. 

And here we are in the Palace Square. We have entered 
from the Bolschaya Morskaya through that archway, and have 
turned directly around, facing the point at which we entered 
the great open square. This is practically a huge parade-ground; 
twenty thousand soldiers have been massed here on great occa¬ 
sions. The Staab or General Staff Building, that we see form¬ 
ing an enormous semi-circle enclosing the south-east side of 
the square, includes the headquarters of various important gov¬ 
ernmental departments, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the 
Ministry of Finance, the Department of Customs and others. 
It would be interesting to know the projects that are taking shape 
nowadays in the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! 

The Russian nation is the greatest landholder in the world. 


58 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


and it likes to do things generally on a large scale. Just look 
at this monument to the first Alexander, and try to believe that 
the shaft,—itself eighty-four feet high,—is one single block of 
granite! But it is quite true. It is the largest single stone that 
has ever been quarried since the time of the Egyptian obelisks. It 
weighs four hundred tons and came from Finland. Reckoning 
the pedestal (that is a single block about twenty-five feet each 
way) and the crowning figure of a cross-bearing angel, the 
whole height of the monument amounts to nearly one hundred 
and fifty-five feet. The ground all about here where we stand 
is “ made land ”; it was originally only an oozy marsh; and, in 
order to make a sufficiently solid foundation for the column, 
six lengths of piles were driven, one- above another, into the 
treacherous earth. 

Russia never will forget how Alexander ■ defeated Napoleon 
in his attempt to invade the land; how the French advanced 
confidently to Moscow looking for easy victory; and how 
Alexander and the northern winter together drove them back, 
wounded, starving, freezing, dying by thousands along the dread¬ 
ful way towards home. After that, what Russian would not 
adore Alexander? France and Russia today are friends and 
allies, but the Czar’s people still feel the old thrill of triumph 
over such a rout of the country’s invaders. And, besides, 
Alexander was an admirable ruler in days of peace. He had a 
good sense of justice and honor. He was a man of character. 
We remember the story they tell of his discussing with some 
adviser a measure he proposed to take for the permanent securing 
of a certain good to the public. He was told that the action 
proposed was not necessary, that the welfare of the people was 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


59 


secure enough with a just man like himself on the throne. 
“Yes,” said Alexander, “but, after all, that is only a fortunate 
accident.” 

If now we should turn exactly right-about-face, we should 
find ourselves viewing the front of the Winter Palace, which 
occupies the opposite (north-west) side of this same great, open 
square. But, in order to get a completer idea of the building, 
we will change our standpoint to a spot near the western end of 
the square, just where the Nevsky Prospect begins, and where 
we can see a part of two sides of the Imperial residence. The 
map shows that we shall then be looking about north. 

13. The Imperial Winter Palace from the Nevsky Prospect. 

Here is the famous palace where so many displays of court 
splendor have taken place. This palace was behind us while we 
stood looking at the Alexander Monument and the Staab Build¬ 
ing. You know our former position was in the square on our 
right only a short distance beyond the limit of our vision in that 
direction. To the left of the palace we see the Great Neva—our 
first sight of it. The buildings beyond the river are on one of 
the islands. 

As for the palace itself we can readily believe it is one 
of the largest residence structures in all Europe. This western 
end, opposite the linden-bordered avenue, we are told is three 
hundred and fifty feet long, and the main front, facing the 
square, nearly half as long again. The tree-lined avenue leads 
down to the Palace Bridge, by which we could cross over to one 
of the large islands in the Neva. And, by the way, we must be 
sure to see by-and-by those twin columns that loom up above 


6o 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


ihe trees, beyond the farther end of tne street. They are over 
on one of the islands, and are counted among the curiosities of 
St. Petersburg. 

Catherine II, the Catherine whose statue we saw near the 
Alexandra Theatre, built this palace in the eighteenth century. 
Imagine her as the historians describe her, a brilliant, stately 
beauty, riding on horseback from the palace door, an oak wreath 
on her head and a sword in her hand, to greet her army as its 
sovereign head! This palace includes a church of its own, a 
special place of worship for the royal family, and the reception 
rooms, boudoirs and chambers of state are almost innumerable. 
In old times this was the actual as well as the theoretical home 
of the imperial family, and this involved the housing of an 
enormous number of courtiers, retainers and servants. It is 
declared that five or six thousand people at a time have lived 
in the huge pile—really a city in itself. The building as we see 
it now is not precisely as it was in Catherine’s day. A great 
fire in 1837 burned out much of the interior, and the restorations 
involved a good many changes. There is a doubtful tradition 
that, before the fire, watchmen who were stationed on the roof 
built cabins up there among the chimneys and set up housekeep¬ 
ing on that lofty plane with their wives and children. 

But this was above the roof. Under the roof each genera¬ 
tion, according to its own standard and fashion, has made the 
most lavish display of formal elegance. The court balls given 
here in the winter are said to be the most brilliant in all Europe, 
in point of decorations, costumes and jewels. In the times of 
Catherine II, while George and Martha Washington were living 
like simple gentlefolks at Mount Vernon, the frequenters of 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


6l 


the palace here were as splendid as wealth could make them. 
According to the chronicles of the time, people of fashion must 
have been gorgeous to behold; a historian of the times says, 
“ Their buttons, their buckles, the scabbards of their swords, 
their epaulets, consisted of diamonds; and many persons even 
wore a triple cord of precious stones round the borders of their 
hats.” 

It is in a room here (in the Imperial Treasury), that the 
Russian crown jewels are kept,—stones whose value is really 
almost beyond count, like the possessions of a king in a fairy 
story. The Orloff Diamond, for one, is the largest of all the 
crown diamonds in Europe. They say it was once the eye of an 
idol in an Indian temple. Stolen by a French soldier, it passed 
through the hands of a Jew and an Armenian, then was pur¬ 
chased by Count Orloff and presented to Catherine II. It is 
set in the imperial sceptre. 

But the Winter Palace stands for tragedy too, as well as for 
court splendor. It was to this very building that the good and 
great Alexander II, the Czar Liberator, in 1881 was brought 
home to die. He had freed forty-seven millions of his country¬ 
men from serfdom, established schools, built railroads, reformed 
the legislation; he was—so tradition says—on the very eve of 
establishing a species of parliamentary representation for the 
people. But the insanity of Nihilism fixed on him for a victim, 
and he was murdered in a street just beyond here, over near the 
Summer Garden. Russia has not yet quite recovered from the 
horror of that day. 


Catherine the Great, the builder of the Winter Palace, was 


62 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


a student as well as a stateswoman, and she set apart a certain 
attached pavilion for her own particular, private den, fancifully 
calling it her “ hermitage.” The books, pictures and curios that 
she collected gradually made up a good-sized museum, and her 
successors added to them more and more, until another build¬ 
ing had to be erected to hold them. Still the collection grew, 
and, some fifty years ago, the museum building was remodeled. 
It stands, as the map shows, by the other (north-east) end of this 
Winter Palace. Let us turn to the right, pass by the long facade 
of the Palace, and look at the famous peristyle or columned 
porch of the museum. 

14. The Peristyle of the Hermitage. 

How superbly impressive these granite giants are, uphold¬ 
ing the roof of the nation’s art treasury! Each one stands 
twenty-two feet high, and looks even taller, thanks to the sculp¬ 
tor s art which brought out so strongly the virile uprightness 
of their strongly modeled figures. 

We could spend days and weeks wandering through the 
nearly endless rooms of this famous museum, for Russian wealth 
and Russian enthusiasm together have made it the storehouse of 
many of the finest existing masterpieces of art. The galleries 
are beautifully arranged. 

15. Gallery of Modern Sculpture in the Hermitage. 

Room after room like this we might pass through, full of 
the creations of celebrated sculptors from the times of Phidias 
through the days of Michaelangelo down to the present time. 
Gallery after gallery we might visit, lined with famous pictures, 
many of them priceless originals by the old masters,— pictures 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


63 


that we knoW at home only through photographs or humble, 
black-and-white prints. The Spanish, Italian, Flemish and Dutch 
schools are particularly well represented here. But, if once we 
undertook to really see all that is worth seeing here in the 
Hermitage, we should never go away. We may as well make 
up our minds to the inevitable limitations of time. We must 
resolutely turn our backs on the rooms full of coins, of gems, 
of ancient and modern vases and rare pottery, of Oriental 
antiquities and curios, and go out once more into the open 
air, to study things more strictly Russian, about the streets and 
squares of the city. 

The Neva river flows behind the Winter Palace and the 
Hermitage, as we have seen, and it is near the river that we 
shall find the favorite city parks. As we leave the Her¬ 
mitage, we will take a short street running north-east, parallel 
with the river, until we come to the little park at its farther end, 
known as the Summer Garden. 

16. Imperial Summer Garden, St. Petersburg. 

Peter the Great built a house fronting on this open garden, 
and the Empress Anne erected in 1731 a still finer mansion known 
now as the Summer Palace. It is a smart little park, neatly 
kept, like all the public places in St. Petersburg, and offering us 
a grateful bit of green shade during the short Russian summer. 
In winter, the winds sweeping across here from the Neva are 
so deadly cold that the more delicate trees have to be wrapped 
in straw and boxed up to keep them from freezing. These statues 
are even swathed and protected in the same tender fashion, and 
not left to display their bare limbs, with shivering suggestive- 


64 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


ness of rheumatism, to the icy blasts. Indeed, setting aside all 
sympathetic sentiment for the delicate nymphs and goddesses, 
it is a stroke of thrifty prudence to give them winter clothes, 
for St. Petersburg frosts can do dreadful havoc with stone¬ 
work. That magnificent Alexander Column which we just saw 
(Stereograph 12), over in the Palace Square, has already had 
some ominous fissures made in it by the winter frosts; but, alas, 
the Alexander Column has to suffer the penalty of its greatness. 
It is too large to be covered up in the winter, and it must take 
its chances. 

The people we meet here in the Summer Garden under the 
linden trees are of the well-to-do merchant classes. We always 
find nurses and children here as they are now, the little folks 
amusing themselves very much as our own babies do at home. 
There is a curious, underlying similarity in children’s games the 
world over. Young people resort here too for love-making 
promenades. In old times the wooing was of a frankly busi¬ 
ness-like sort. On Whit Monday, a favorite festival among the 
many in the Russian church calendar, young girls of marriageable 
age used to be brought here by their mothers, dressed in their 
best clothes, the approximate amount of their dowries indicated 
by the richness of their jewelry, and deliberately ranged in line, 
for inspection by the young men. Critical youths walked up 
and down the line, and made their choice of sweethearts; this 
choice, if agreed to by the girl and her watchful mother, was 
confirmed by a formal betrothal and then consummated later 
by the wedding ceremony in church. Such bare-faced bargain¬ 
ing would shock the prosperous mammas of St. Petersburg to¬ 
day; but they do say that on Whit Monday, even now, a sur- 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


65 


prising number of pretty girls always happen to be decorously 
walking here just when the eligible young men are out for their 
holiday stroll! 

As we go about the streets of St. Petersburg, especially as 
we frequent this part of the city near the Neva, we are continu¬ 
ally impressed by the marvelous success with which a great 
metropolis has been created out of a well-nigh hopeless north- 
land bog. The city is named for St. Peter, but it might well be 
counted the namesake of the old Czar who called it into existence 
less than two hundred years ago. If we want to realize what one 
man of genius can do to wake up a nation and set it on its feet, 
let us retrace our road, returning to the Winter Palace, and 
passing still farther west, by the great Admiralty building, to the 
north-west side of another great open square. There Peter the 
Great, in bronze, reins in his prancing horse and looks out over 
the Neva. Our position can be easily found on the map, to the 
west of the Admiralty. 

17. Equestrian Statue of Peter the Great. 

Considered just as a colossal monument, this is a fine piece 
of work. The pedestal is a single block of Finland granite 
weighing fifteen hundred tons; tradition says it is the very rock 
on which Peter once stood to watch and direct a battle with the 
Swedes. The bronze figure is seventeen and a half feet high, 
and contains some sixteen tons’ weight of metal. The French 
sculptor Falconet, who cast the statue, secured the balance of the 
rearing horse by making him trample under foot a huge snake, 
emblematic of Difficulty and Danger. (We could see the serpent 
better from the other side of the pedestal, but this is the best point 


66 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


of view for the stern horseman.) An immense weight was con¬ 
centrated in the serpent’s body and in the horse’s hind legs, and 
the junction of the flowing tail with one of the snaky coils (it 
looks accidental) keeps the whole enormous mass solid and 
secure. The Latin inscription says, with dignified brevity, “To 
Peter I, by Catherine II, 1782.” It seems a pity that the imperial 
donor’s name should be rather more conspicuous than that of 
the hero himself, but Catherine, like other great people, had her 
little weaknesses. 

There is a fascination about this grim, commanding figure. 
It is like what Peter the Great ought to be,—the man who only 
about two hundred years ago (1696) took in hand a nation hardly 
more than half civilized, hardly recognized among the European 
Powers, and put it in the way of being what it is now, one of 
the mightiest forces with which the civilized world has to 
reckon. 

Russia owned vast inland territories, but no seaport. Peter 
took Turkish lands on the Black Sea, Persian lands on the 
Caspian, Swedish lands on the Gulf of Finland. Russia had 
no ships, no sailors, no knowledge of sea-craft. Peter went in 
person to Holland and set to work as a ship-carpenter’s appren¬ 
tice, learned the trade, such as it was two hundred years ago, 
from start to finish, filling up his spare time by studying rope¬ 
making, blacksmithing and a few other crafts, handy for a new 
nation to know. When he came back to Russia, it was to inaugu¬ 
rate one practical enterprise after another. He wanted, he said, 
“ a window to look out into Europe.” A city must be built on 
the Neva, for the national capital. The site was a desolate bog, 
away up towards the Arctic circle; there was no building stone. 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


67 


there was hardly a peasant inhabitant. But everything is pos¬ 
sible to a Peter the Great. Peasants and workmen were sent, 
willy-nilly, forty thousand at a time, from other parts of the 
empire, to live here and begin operations. Ships were con¬ 
structed according to the newly learned system, land-lubbers were 
forced to swallow their prejudices and fears and to learn navi¬ 
gation. Shipmasters and teamsters were required to bring from 
distant quarries the vast quantities of stone needed at the new 
port to build quays and to lay solid foundations for prospective 
buildings. Every ship of a certain size had to bring thirty stones 
at each visit; smaller boats were required to bring ten; every 
peasant cart must bring at least three, whatever its other load. 
Peter himself lived in a cottage over on the north shore of the 
Neva and kept things moving. He made a vigorous foreman, 
when he was not a general leading the Russian army against 
his (naturally) numerous enemies, or an educator founding 
schools and libraries, or a prince exacting more or less elegant 
deference from his court. And a court he had, too; he simply 
issued orders that certain of the nobility should at once build 
residences in the new city, and palace after palace was obediently 
constructed, followed by the shops of merchants likewise sum¬ 
moned to help populate the new capital. It was a unique sort of 
“boom” in real estate! 

What does the great Czar think of his work now? “Holy 
Russia,” his beloved Russia, is what he meant she should grow 
to be, one of the Great Powers. Look closely at those blouse-clad 
boys loitering around the statue! They are rapidly being made 
into soldiers, hardy, persistent, obedient to the Casabianca point, 
every mother’s son of them. The nation’s arm is vastly longer 


68 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


than it used to be. It has greater strength as well as wider 
range. And bronze Peter, on his rearing horse, gazes across the 
river as if there were still a good deal on his mind! 

An interesting trait of our Russian cousins is the serious way 
in which they take their developing national history. They are a 
devoutly religious people, after their own fashion. Every house, 
even every shop, has its ikon or sacred picture, usually of Christ 
or the Virgin Mary, and to this picture—or to the personality it 
stands for—the greatest reverence is shown. There are dissenters 
from the popular faith among the people at large, but the ortho¬ 
dox Russian believes heartily in a Lord of heaven and earth, 
and, moreover, he believes as heartily that the Russians are the 
Lord’s chosen people, specially beloved and protected by Him, 
and destined to inherit the earth here as well as heaven by-and- 
by. The Czar is, by virtue of his office, the anointed head'of the 
Russian Church; the ceremony of his coronation includes a 
solemn, religious consecration, reckoned as a sort of sacrament. 
In Russia, Church and State are actually united in the person 
of the Czar. 

The largest and most impressive of all places of worship 
in St. Petersburg is here beside us, opposite Peter’s statue. If 
we turn to the right, from where we have been standing, we 
find ourselves facing one of the beautiful, great porticoes of 
SL Isaac’s. The sectional map shows that we shall be on the 
north side of St. Isaac’s, looking somewhat east of south. 

18. St. Isaac’s Cathedral, St. Petersburg. 

This park extends for some distance all around us; the open 
square into which it merges stretches off behind us to the river- 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 69 

side where Peter bestrides his horse and tramples the snake 
Difficulty under foot. 

St. Isaac’s is dedicated to a Dalmatian saint of the Greek 
Church, not to the Hebrew patriarch with whom we are more 
familiar. But, in our tourist eyes, it is a monument to the almost 
incredible persistency and the almost unlimited resources of Rus¬ 
sian enterprise. One hundred years ago the ground on which 
we stand was a waste of boggy marsh. Fully a million dollars 
were spent in sinking a thick forest of piles to prepare for its 
stone foundations. The church itself was only forty years in 
building; it is from first to last the work of one architect, 
—Montferrand of France (the same man who designed the 
Alexander monument), and, having been completed less than 
fifty years ago, it has no ancient historic associations. Indeed, 
the exterior has nothing characteristically Russian about it ex 
cept the beautifully picturesque Russian lettering of the inscrip¬ 
tions over the vast entrance porches. The legend over this 
entrance front, directly facing us, signifies: “ The King shall 
rejoice in Thy strength, O Lord.” 

There are four great porches like this, one on each side; 
for the ground-plan of the building is a Greek cross; and en¬ 
trance is given on three of the four sides alike. The eastern 
portico alone has no entrance doors, for here, as in all Russian 
churches, the altar and the ikonostasis or sacred screen occupy 
the eastern end. 

As we look up at the building, we are more and more awed 
by the magnificence of its proportions. It is nearly four hundred 
feet in width. These steps are enormous single blocks of red- 
gray granite from Finland, fit for a giant’s palace. Compare 


70 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


the height of a man with that of the pillars, and see how 
enormous they are. They seem to grow taller as we study 
them. At first sight they were beautiful in their simple ele¬ 
gance, but when we realize the scale on which they are formed 
and placed, they become something marvelous. Each column 
is a single mass of rosy-reddish granite, sixty feet high * and 
seven feet in diameter, polished like a jewel. There are only 
two larger single stones in the world; one is Pompey’s Pillar 
in Egypt, and the other is the Column of Alexander, which 
we admired in the square opposite the Winter Palace (Stereo¬ 
graph 12). The Corinthian capitals of these porch pillars are 
of greenish bronze, making a fine contrast of color with the 
granite columns and with the marble of the walls. The triangular 
pediment or gable supported by these columns and filled with 
bronze bas-reliefs might in itself complete a lofty building, but it 
is, in fact, only the roof of an entrance porch. The marble walls 
of the cathedral proper rise higher and higher behind it. Above 
the horizontal line of the roof, with its cupola bell-towers, a circle 
of granite columns rises, surrounding the lofty drum of the dome. 
Just now there is a temporary scaffolding over the drum; some 
repairs or renovations must be in process. Higher and higher 
our eyes follow. Indistinct angel figures in bronze stand guard 
at regular intervals on the balcony above the higher circle of 
columns. Then above the angels’ heads rises the dome like a 
gigantic bishop’s cap of glittering gold, and, above all, the golden 
lantern, its summit three hundred and thirty-six feet from the 
ground. It takes one’s breath away. 

These bronze bas-reliefs in the pediment are worth detailed 
study as spirited bits of sculpture, though they contradict every 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


71 


traditional custom of church architecture in the Greek com¬ 
munion. The Eastern church, as a rule, frowns on sculptured 
representations of sacred subjects. The sculptures of this pedi¬ 
ment before us represent the Resurrection. The statue over the 
peak of the pediment is St. John; at the eaves, Peter and Paul. 
The figures surmounting the main building at its outer corners 
are colossal angels kneeling before candelabra twenty-two 
feet high. 

It was in 1825, while St. Isaac’s was building, that the Czar 
Nicholas I had a dramatic encounter with three revolting regi¬ 
ments right on this square where we now stand. It was a 
strange complication of things that led to the situation. Alexan¬ 
der I, son of Paul, and grandson of Catherine the Great, had 
just died, leaving no children, but, instead, three younger broth¬ 
ers, Constantine, Nicholas and Michael, Constantine being the 
eldest of these survivors. He was a somewhat eccentric char¬ 
acter, and had for years spent most of his time at Warsaw, 
where he was Governor General of Poland, and had married a 
Polish wife. Nicholas, the second brother, being in St. Peters¬ 
burg at the time of Alexander’s death, proceeded naturally to 
proclaim the accession of Constantine as heir to the throne, and 
sent word to the new Czar at Warsaw to come home and be 
crowned. But, to the amazement of Nicholas, the elder brother 
declined the invitation with thanks, presenting, in turn, certain 
documents dating back to the time of his Polish marriage, by 
which it appeared that he had several years previously renounced 
any and all claims to the throne. This put a new face on the 
matter and made Nicholas himself the new Czar. The high 
officials of Church and State willingly took the oath of alle- 


72 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


giance to him, but when it came to having the soldiers swear 
allegiance, there was great confusion. In the first place, the 
soldiers, not understanding Constantine’s position, had an idea 
that Nicholas was a usurper; and, in the second place, the lead¬ 
ers of a revolutionary political party, who wished to overthrow 
the Romanoff dynasty and establish a constitutional monarchy, 
excited the troops to revolt and raised a rallying cry of Con- 
stitutsia, a cry which the illiterate soldiers confused with the 
name of Constantine, and that made matters all the worse. 
Three entire regiments massed themselves here in this square 
behind the statue of Peter the Great, in open revolt. Nicholas 
learned of the movement, and with his staff rode over her£ from 
the Winter, Palace to meet the rebels. As the Czar drew near, 
an officer in one of the disaffected regiments advanced, his 
right hand thrust significantly into the breast of his uniform. 
The Czar steadily rode on till they were within a sword’s length 
of each other. “What do you bring me?” asked Nicholas. The 
officer looked him in the eye; turned his horse; rode back to the 
ranks. He said afterwards: “ The Czar looked at me with so 
terrible a glance that I could not kill him.” 

The insurgents were ordered to disperse, and at first refused, 
but a battery of artillery was brought up, and repeated volleys 
of cannon-shot brought them to submission and put an end to 
the incipient revolution. 

Those who have the patience (and the muscle) to climb to 
the roof of St. Isaac’s are rewarded by wide views in all direc¬ 
tions over the city and its surroundings; for St. Petersburg is 
practically level and lies spread out like a map. We shall now 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


73 


take our position on the roof of the Cathedral, and look out over 
the city in a direction slightly east of north. As we are now 
facing toward the south-east, it is evident that we shall then 
be looking directly toward what is now on our left. The two 
diverging red lines which indicate this new position on the maps 
show that we are to see part of the Admiralty building and also 
look over two former positions (Stereographs Nos. 12 and 13), 
thus seeing again the Winter Palace and the Alexander column 
in the Palace Square. 

19. St. Petersburg from the Dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. 

Just at our feet is the War Office, with the arms of Russia 
emblazoned on its gabled roof,—a two-headed eagle, crowned, 
and grasping in its claws emblems of Russian Church and State. 
It is, of course, a symbol familiar to all good Russians. They 
tell a story of a young Grand Duke some years ago, who one 
day shot an uncommonly large bird while out hunting. One of 
the men-in-waiting picked up the prize, and, full of respectful 
enthusiasm, brought it to the sportsman. “ Your Highness has 
killed an eagle,” he announced. The Grand Duke was a nice 
boy, but he was better versed in horsemanship and fencing than 
in ornithology. He gave the trophy a hasty glance. “ That’s no 
eagle,” he declared, scornfully, “ it has only one head! ” 

The two-headed bird of Russia is an enormously significant 
emblem in these days. Germany, Austria, France, England, 
China, Japan, America,—all the world is interested to know the 
orders that go out from this building at our feet, the Russian 
War Office, with its absolutely impassive countenance of stone 
and its blankly non-committal, expressionless eyes of windows. 


74 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


But all our gazing at the outside of the building will not sum¬ 
mon its state secrets to view. We certainly shall not learn here 
“ the lay of the land ” in matters of state policy. It will be enough 
if we learn the literal lay-of-the-land, and get our local bearings 
clearly fixed in mind. 

We are looking north-north-east, we must remember, over 
a part of the ground we have so lately traversed. That long 
(comparatively) low building with the cupola and the tall, slender 
spire, that we see at the left over the roof of the War Office, 
is the Admiralty, the seat of the Navy Department. The Nevsky 
Prospect begins, we know, nearly opposite the middle of this 
Admiralty Building, and runs off to the right between those 
chimney-crowned, tin-covered house tops that seem from this 
point of view so solidly massed together. Yes, we remember 
looking down the Nevsky Prospect from the corner of the Im¬ 
perial Library, a half a mile or so beyond the limit of our vision 
on the right, and seeing this same slender, golden spire in the 
distance at the head of the avenue (Stereograph 8). Then it 
was near where the Prospect begins, there in the Admiralty 
Square, that we stood to admire the Winter Palace (Stereograph 
13). That is the Winter Palace now, beyond the Admiralty, 
with its front nearly in line with the Admiralty front, and a little 
observation will show that we were then looking at the same 
side of the Palace that we now see all bathed in sunlight. The 
Hermitage Museum (Stereograph 14) must be just beyond the 
Palace. A little farther to the right we can see very clearly a 
part of the sun-lighted fagade of the semi-circular mass of the 
General Staff Building (Stereograph 12), and, between us and 
the Staff Building, that noble shaft of the Alexander Monument 



RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


75 


holds the cross-bearing angel up against the sky. It was into 
that open square there between the Winter Palace and the 
Staff Building that we emerged when we had gone through the 
arched passage at the end of the Boise hay a Morskaya (Stere¬ 
ograph n). 

The Admiralty and the Winter Palace are both directly on 
the bank of the Neva, of which we can catch a glimpse again 
over the lower roofs between the Winter Palace and the cupola 
of the Admiralty. The buildings that we see to the extreme 
left beyond the Admiralty and the Palace are on the islands that 
make up a great part of the city area, to tne north; for instance, 
the spire that we see just at the right of the Admiralty spire is 
about a mile away, on the fortress cathedral of Saints Peter 
and Paul—the cathedral where Peter the Great lies buried. That 
fortress can be located better on the general map. We will go 
over there later. That spire is one of the tallest in Russia, three 
hundred and forty feet high. It is from the Admiralty spire 
here, on this nearer bank of the river, that signals are hung in 
times of high water, to warn the city of coming inundations. 
Over all the rest we look to the limits of the city on the north. 

Suppose we go part way around the roof toward the left, 
and look off in a direction slightly west of north, but still 
from the same height. 

20. Admiralty Building, University and Vasilii Ostrof. 

Now we are looking almost directly north across the Neva 
to Vasilii Ostrof or Basil Island (Vassilievskaia). The park 
at our feet is the one from which we first viewed the cathedral 
on which we are standing (Stereograph 18). Indeed, you can see 


76 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


the very same flower bed that was nearest us then, down our left 
here, between the third and fourth walk. The equestrian statue 
of Peter the Great (Stereograph 17) stands on the river bank 
at the edge of the park, but beyond the limit of our vision here. 
That nearest large building with the rows of granite columns 
and the gabled projection in the roof is the Admiralty again,— 
its western end. We remember we saw a section of this same 
end of the Admiralty when we were down on the ground look¬ 
ing up at Peter’s commanding figure (Stereograph 17). It is 
the most natural thing in the world that Peter’s effigy and the 
official home of the Navy Department should stand side by side, 
considering how dear to his heart was the enterprise of establish¬ 
ing a navy. It was Alexander I who erected the present build¬ 
ing. In Peter’s own day that site was occupied by common 
ship-yards, where he instructed his men in the art of boat build¬ 
ing, and from which he sent them out to practice navigation 
on the river. The chroniclers say that some of the amateur 
skippers had a sorry time of it during their first lessons in sea¬ 
manship. One unhappy noble, too much honored by the royal 
command to take charge of a vessel, put off from here and spent 
three miserable, hungry days tacking between St. Petersburg 
and Cronstadt, twenty miles down the Gulf, trying in vain to 
make a landing during rough weather. 

From this high vantage point we are able to catch sight of 
two of the three branches into which the Neva divides, as it flows 
out through the city to the gulf of Finland on the west. The 
river nearest us, just beyond this park, is the main branch or 
channel of the Neva, and is known as the Bolchaia or Great 
Neva. The water dimly seen over the trees on the island of 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


77 


Vasilii Ostrof is the Malaia or Little Neva. It is best to locate 
the field of view before us here on the general map of St. 
Petersburg also. We find the limits of our vision marked there 
by the two red lines which branch off in a north-westerly direc¬ 
tion from St. Isaac’s. These two lines have the number 20 at 
their extremities on the map margin. Now we can understand 
exactly what part of the Great Neva and of the Little Neva 
we have been looking at, and we can also see that the third branch 
of the Neva, known as the Nevka, which in turn divides into 
the Great and Little Nevka, leaves the Neva a mile beyond our 
vision limit on the right. It is clear now too that we see from 
our present position on St. Isaac’s parts of the two islands formed 
by the Neva’s three branches, the nearer Vasilii Ostrof, and 
beyond the Peterbourgsky Ostrof, or Peter’s Island. In spite 
of the haze we are looking practically to the limits of the city 
toward the north-west. Beyond Peter’s Island there are four 
smaller islands, formed by branches of the Nevka. These are 
more or less closely occupied, chiefly forming park-like suburbs, 
the favorite pleasure resorts of the towns-people. 

In winter time this part of the Great Neva becomes a favorite 
place for fun and social gayety. The snow is cleared away, 
leaving wide roadways of ice for sleighs and sledges. Chairs 
mounted on broad runners are pushed about by men on skates. 
There are often exciting races over the frozen course, down 
where we see that little steamer, between us and Vasilii Island. 
That island is the commercial centre of the city, just as the region 
where we are now (the neighborhood of the War and Navy De¬ 
partments, the Palace and the Staff Offices) is its political and 
social centre. Let us see . . . Yes, we can make out from 


78 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


here one of the most notable landmarks of the island, something 
we have seen before in the distance and shall later see more 
closely. Away out to the right, above the Admiralty build¬ 
ings, do you see the conspicuously dark side of another pile of 
buildings, and, beyond that, a tall column standing up against 
the horizon line? That is one of the pillars near the Bourse or 
Exchange, located on the end of the island; we saw both of 
the columns from the corner of the Winter Palace (Stereo¬ 
graph 13). 

Over there on the island are also the Academy of Sciences 
and the National University, whose fine stone buildings are in 
sight just over the left-hand corner of the Admiralty, beyond 
that tall flag-staff. Some of the university graduates and mem¬ 
bers of the faculty have a wide reputation in their various sub¬ 
jects. 

It was among the students of this university, as well as 
among the students in the universities of Kief and Moscow, 
that the disturbances started of which we have heard so much 
lately (1901). Rumors of plots to kill the Czar were numerous. 
In connection with these disturbances the Minister of Public 
Instruction was killed. 

Now if we go around to another point on St. Isaac’s roof, 
where we can look off toward the west, we shall get a further 
idea of the extent of the city. 

21. Riding School of the Life Guards, Synod, Academy and 
Vasilii Ostrof. 

The Czar’s Chevalier Guards, a magnificently drilled part of 
the Russian army, have their Riding School in this temple-like 



RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


79 


building at our feet,—impressive building, that. It is all the more 
impressive in contrast with that tiny box of a house close beside 
its nearest corner,—a mere shed or toy house it looks from here. 
That is one of the little houses to be seen here and there in 
St. Petersburg, where vendors of fruit, sweets, etc., retail to 
passers-by. 

The plain, three-story building at the other side of the park 
is the Synod, the official headquarters of the ecclesiastical author¬ 
ities of St. Petersburg. The street-car track that turns around 
the corner runs a few blocks alongside the narrow, tree-filled 
park and then, turning to the right, crosses the river (which runs 
between us and that huge, white building over yonder), by the 
Nicholas Bridge, and leads over to a point on Vasilii Ostrof. 
near where you see that same great building, the St. Peters¬ 
burg Academy of Arts. In that art school many of the best- 
known Russian painters and sculptors have studied. Here in 
Russia, as everywhere else, art students are often desperately 
poor, and have hard struggles to maintain themselves while they 
are earning their fame. The greatest sculptor the country has 
yet known, Marc Antocolski, was thirty years ago working over 
there in the Academy, and trying to keep soul and body together 
on ten roubles (five dollars) a month. The dome of the Academy 
building is surmounted by a colossal statue of Minerva, the patron 
of the arts and goddess of wisdom; but, unfortunately, under 
the dome there must have been a great lack of wisdom, for the 
professors frowned on Antocolski’s original spirit and methods, 
and would hardly look at him or at what he did. But, with 
the inspired egotism of the born artist, he kept on in his own way, 
and at last, one fine day the President of the Academy did look 


8o 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


at his wonderful statue of Ivan the Terrible, and was mightily 
impressed by it. The President brought an appreciative Grand 
Duchess to see it. The Grand Duchess brought the Czar. And 
from that time forth the genius who conceived the Ivan statue 
had no longer to live in a starving body. They made him a 
member of the Imperial Academy, gave him a government pen¬ 
sion, and sent him to Rome to study and work according as it 
pleased him. 

The Russians are not, as a rule, generally appreciative of art. 
Their chances to see fine pictures and statuary are very few 
in comparison with those of the people of Italy, Germany and 
France, where art galleries are numerous, and where the churches 
are the repositories of many of the best works of the greatest 
masters. Ecclesiastical art here in Russia is held, for the most 
part, within rigid bounds by the rules and traditions of the 
Eastern Church. The ikons, though amazingly numerous, seldom 
if ever depart from certain prescribed rules of execution; they 
are, as a rule, stiffly conventional symbols of persons and things 
rather than pictorial representations of the persons or things, 
making up in gorgeousness of setting (gold, silver and every 
sort of precious stones being lavishly used to represent, for in¬ 
stance, a Virgin’s robe or halo) for the lack of expression in 
a sacred face. 

We cross now to Vasilii Ostrof, the island we have been 
looking to several limes, and which we see in the distance here. 
Those buildings which we see in line with the Academy of Arts 
are all facing the Neva, being the first row of buildings on the 
island. The map shows that we shall go on the third street 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 8 1 

from the river, near its eastern end. There we shall see a 
characteristic bit of church ceremonial, where an ikon is being 
used — the setting-out of a procession of church dignitaries 
to bless the waters of the Neva and make them fit to drink. 


22. St. Catherine Church and Holy-Water Procession. 

We are just in time to stand here on the street corner and 
watch the people as they come out of the St. Catherine Church, 
yonder, on their way to the river which we have crossed. The 
river is behind us now, for we are looking nearly north from 
our station at the corner of First Line and Middle Prospect. 
See how punctiliously every man and boy in the crowd has bared 
his head in reverence for the sacred banners and pictures that 
are being borne down to the water. Many of these men have 
no notion how to read or write, but every one is taught to show 
respect for the emblems of the Church faith. Even this white- 
aproned apprentice boy near us, returning from some errand 
with that tin can and really quite absorbed at just this moment 
in staring at us, has taken off his greasy cap in honor of the 
approaching ikon. 

Everything in Russia is introduced by an ecclesiastical bless¬ 
ing. They make even more of benediction here in Russia than 
in the countries where the Latin Church prevails. The Neva 
waters are blessed to make them fit to drink. The apple crop 
is blessed before anybody ventures to eat apples. The imperial 
standards are blessed at the opening of a military review. The 
flags are blessed at the beginning of the Nijni Novgorod fair. 
Just how this particular blessing of the river water performs its 


82 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


mission, these shabby, good-natured folk seldom inquire. Mean¬ 
while, all the world loves a procession. We do, too. 

How interesting it is to study faces in a crowd! This man 
directly in front of us, turning to look across the street, so that 
we see his mild profile, is a thorough Russian, with his thick mop 
of hair and his full beard. The small boys over in the middle 
of the street, by the car track, are attractive little fellows. How 
they do admire and envy the policemen on horseback, who ride 
ahead to clear the way for the priests! A good many of the 
women in this neighborhood seem to be of the humbler classes, 
for they wear kerchiefs on their heads; that is a picturesque, 
kerchief-clad head, straight in front of us! See the young girl 
who naively shades her eyes with one hand, the better to gaze, 
wonderingly, at our foreign figures; just behind her is the wearer 
of the pretty kerchief, a fringed kerchief, probably the owner’s 
Sunday best, draped effectively about the shoulders, over which 
a baby peers. And look at the man who stands with bowed, 
bare head, just beyond the kerchiefed mother with the baby. He 
has an interesting face; he might be a workingman in one of 
Tolstoi’s stories. If only we could look at the world for just a 
minute through his eyes! It would be a world quite different 
from the one you and I know. 

The service of blessing the Neva is performed by the priests 
of several different churches, all at the same time. Now let us 
go and watch that bit of ceremony. We will take our station 
near one of the temporary floats put in place for the occasion. 
The spot is near the extreme left-hand limit of our first view 
of Vasilii Ostrof (Stereograph 20), close by that part of the river 
where the little steamboat was plying when we looked off from 



RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


83 


the roof of the great cathedral. The maps show that we shall be 
looking up to the same part of the island front that we saw 
before. 

23. Blessing the Waters of the Neva, St. Petersburg. 

There, off to the right, is the Academy of Sciences. We 
shall recognize our new position at once if we take a look at 
this building again from our former standpoint on the cathedral 
(Stereograph 20). 

This floating platform, with its gay decorations, is put in 
place for the occasion only. The cross-crowned pavilion is the 
place of honor for the ikons and the chief dignitaries. There is 
an ikon now; we can see it just over the head of this first man 
in the row along the nearer side of the float, standing with his 
back to us. The picture is practically a mass of gold and jewels, 
only the faces of the Virgin and Child being painted, in sharp 
contrast with the glittering metal of their clothes. 

Do you see how different the cross over the pavilion is from 
the crosses we oftenest see? The uppermost cross-bar represents 
the written inscription placed over the head of Christ by the 
Jews. The lowermost cross-bar, placed crookedly, has more 
than one signification. Sometimes it serves as a reminder of the 
earthquake that shook Calvary; again, it is a reminder of an 
ancient tradition of the Eastern Church, which says that Christ’s 
was a crippled body, that He had one leg shorter than the other, 
taking upon Himself in the flesh all the humiliations and dis¬ 
abilities of physical imperfection. This elaboration of the cross 
is very common everywhere in Russia. 


8 4 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


The priests are gorgeous when arrayed in robes like these, 
stiff with embroideries in silk, silver, gold and precious stones. 
Their long hair and full beards look strange to our western eyes, 
more accustomed to the shaven faces of Roman Catholic prelates; 
and stranger still seems at first the fact that they are married 
men. The Black Clergy or monastic brethren are, of course, 
vowed to celibacy, but the White Clergy or parish priests are 
not merely allowed but definitely required to marry before they 
can be ordained. Their income, beyond a certain limited amount 
provided by the government, is dependent on the performance 
of the official duties of the parishes. Fees for christenings, 
marriages, burials and the like bring in large amounts in rich 
parishes in the large towns, but out in the country districts many 
of the priests have a hard time to make both" ends meet. They 
do not even have much to hope for through professional promo¬ 
tion, for important positions in the cities are likely to be given 
to priests from the monasteries. There are no organs in this 
land of the Eastern Church; the music is wonderfully good in its 
own way, but it is altogether vocal. Priests and singers are given 
long and careful training in the chants and intoned prayers of the 
ritual service, and their voices, always strong, are often beautiful 
as well. 

One of the interesting places to visit on Vasilii Ostrof is the 
Bourse or Exchange at the eastern end of the island. We shall 
go there now. The sectional map shows that we take our stand 
first near the Exchange Building, and look back almost directly 
south across the river, toward parts of the city we have lately 
visited. 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 85 

24. Palace Bridge, Admiralty and St. Isaac’s Church, from 
the Exchange. 

This is the Palace Bridge close by, so called because it 
crosses to the Winter Palace, which stands beyond our limit of 
vision on the right. In fact, the bridge leads over to a point 
near the farther end of the tree-lined avenue down which we 
looked a little while ago when we were standing by the corner 
of the Palace itself (Stereograph 13). It is a curious rather 
than an imposing structure, this bridge, for it is built in sections, 
of wood, and supported on floats, so that the whole structure 
can be taken to pieces and put out of the way when ice forms in 
the river. 

Those are the Admiralty buildings once more, west of the 
bridge. They are arranged in a hollow square or rather a 
hollow oblong; this is a side opposite the one we saw when we 
first looked off from the roof of the cathedral (Stereograph 19). 
The slender spire straight in front of us is still conspicuous; we 
should recognize it from any new standpoint. The body of St. 
Isaac’s is hidden by the Admiralty, but how that gigantic dome 
does dominate everything else! They say the sailors often make 
it out from away down the Gulf as far as Cronstadt. 

Was there ever more lavish use of stone in street construc¬ 
tion? Look at this granite sea-wall, the paved sidewalk, the road¬ 
way, the stone platform and these posts at our feet. They are 
a perpetual reminder of the stupendous task the Russians under¬ 
took when they set about building a national capital in this for¬ 
saken region. All these stones, great and small, were brought 
here for their purpose. It was fortunate for St. Petersburg that 
rocky Finland was so near. The labor of creating these solid 


86 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


quays and streets might have been even greater. We cannot 
venture to say that anything would have been actually impossible 
with a man like long-headed, rough-and-ready Czar Peter to plan 
and execute. 

This end of Vasilii Ostrof is devoted to the pursuit of 
money. It is the financial centre of Russia. We are standing 
on the base of a column; we see the granite blocks at our feet. 
Suppose we walk part way around this column now, and see what 
is going on in the opposite direction. 

25. Bourse Place, Vasilii Ostrof. 

We are looking north-north-west here, as our maps make 
clear again. At our feet again we have the granite posts, with 
chains attached for the protection of the column behind us. Off to 
the left is the street-car line which runs, as the sectional map 
shows, across the Palace Bridge. It was on our right a few 
minutes ago when we were looking back to the Admiralty. We 
saw this line also down on our left when near the Winter Palace 
(Stereograph 13). It is a busy place here; drays, carts, drosch- 
kys, street cars, ships, steamers. That strange construction facing 
us is one of the tall Mercury columns that we saw also from the 
head of the Nevsky Prospect (Stereograph 13). We are stand¬ 
ing on the pedestal of its lofty mate. At that time the two were 
almost in line. We saw the column now in front of us when on 
St. Isaac’s (Stereograph 20). Its queer, beak-shaped decorations 
of bronze, set at intervals in the granite shaft, represent the prows 
of vessels (Mercury, in the old classical traditions, was the pre¬ 
siding deity of commerce) ; and its summit bears, one hundred 
feet above the ground, a group of lanterns often lighted at night 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


87 


and visible from a long distance. That cathedral which we see 
looming up just beyond the Mercury tower is one of the few 
churches in St. Petersburg which show the old-time Russian 
predilection for an assemblage of small domes on a single build¬ 
ing. We shall see many more of those oddly grouped domes, 
when we go on to Moscow. 

Meanwhile, here is the swarming life of St. Petersburg 
right around us. This is the best chance we have yet found to 
see droschkys at close range. They do not always have hood 
tops as here; often in the country towns they are without any 
covering whatever and even without any support for the back of 
the passenger. These drivers or isvostschicks are perfect types 
of their class, sleepy looking fellows with long, bushy hair, stiff 
hats and long frocks belted in at the waist. A Russian writer 
once said that the typical isvostschick looks as if he had a Turk 
for his father and a Quaker for his mother. There seem to be 
no definite regulations as to the cost of droschky hire. The 
guileless looking driver makes the best bargain that he can, 
beginning with a price three times what he will really accept, 
and lowering it little by little, volubly protesting the while that 
he is being ruined; and, indeed, he does not make any great 
amount of money, take the year together, for the holidays when 
droschkys are in great demand are not numerous enough to make 
his income roll up to any great amount. These men seldom speak 
any language but their own Russian, so the bargaining must be 
done in that tongue. Suppose we wish to go over to the Cath¬ 
erine Church (Stereograph 22); we call, “Isvostschick!” and 
one of these drivers moves over near us to see what is wanted. 
“ Perva Linea ee Sredne Prospekt. Skolko Prossesh?” (First 


88 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


Line and Middle Prosepect; how much do you ask?) “ Shaist 
Greeven.” (Thirty cents.) “Aito otchen dorogo; n’yai dahm 
bolaiyai dvatset kopeck.” (It is too dear; I will give no more 
than ten cents.) He looks abused, and protests, “ Niet, niet, 
treetset kopeck!” (No, no, fifteen cents.) Then we try, 
“ Dvatset-pyait kopeck.” (Twelve-and-a-half cents.) He shakes 
his head sorrowfully, and we turn away as if to find another 
droschky. He lets us go as long as he thinks we may turn back, 
and then calls out, “ Pahzshahluyste! ” (Please!) This means 
that he accepts our last offer, and we start off. At first he will 
drive rather slowly, in order to make us ask him to drive faster 
and promise, “ Yeslee tee main’ya pavaiz’yosh paskaraiyai, to 
preebahvlew taibai na vodkoo.” (If you drive well, I will add 
something for the drink.) Then the sleepy, little horse wakes up 
too; the funny, little vehicle goes spinning along like the very 
wind, and we get to our destination in less time than it took to 
drive the bargain. We pay him thirty-five kopecks instead of 
twenty-five, and he is perfectly satisfied, doffing his hat with 
“ Blagahdaryou vahss! ” (I thank you!), and goes off to find an¬ 
other customer, hoping the next one will be as generous in fees 
as we were. Sometimes two droschky drivers will compete for 
a waiting customer, tossing all sorts of jokes and playful abuse 
at each other; but, in the end, they always accept good-naturedly 
whatever decision the patron makes. 

Job teamsters are numerous too, in this part of the town. 
They clamor eagerly over a job in prospect, but they belong to 
a labor union, and underbidding has to end at a certain point. 
At that point they are likely to draw lots, to see who shall do the 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 89 

work. They are vociferous but kindly souls, asking little of life 
and—it must be confessed—getting little. 

The harnesses of these wagons and drays are different in 
several respects from those to which we are accustomed. See 
that trace extending from shaft to axle on the wagon, loaded with 
barrels! It looks as if the main dependence were the tying of 
the shafts to the collar, the arched douga, meanwhile, holding 
the shafts a little apart, so that they do not actually rub the 
sides of the patient beast. 

These odd, little street-cars, with the staircase leading up to 
the rail-enclosed top, are always interesting. Such double-decked 
tram-cars are used all over Europe. It must be much pleasanter 
to ride on the outer, upper seats than shut in down below. 
Horse-cars, yes, and evidently gas-lights here; but we saw elec¬ 
tric-light poles on the Nevsky Prospect (Stereograph 8) and the 
Bolschaya Morskaya (Stereograph u), so we know the city of 
the Czar is adopting the newest methods of city house-keeping. 
Where do you suppose that fine, large steamship comes from? 
And where do you suppose those vessels are going—the vessels 
whose masts we see as they lie by the quay? Russia’s trade is 
on the increase, as it must needs be, though her own resources 
are nowhere near being fully developed. America’s trade with 
Russia is at present less than that with the great European 
powers. Tools of various sorts are brought in here from America, 
but the American exports to the Czar’s land are raw materials, 
largely cottons and oils. Russia sends out in return raw wool, 
hides, flax and hemp and a share of her precious platinum. 
Riga and the other ports on the Baltic take a good deal of the 
shipping trade; still, St. Petersburg is itself an important business 


9 o 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


centre. The railroad service is being made more and more 
efficient all over the country, and, besides, Russia uses canals 
for freight transportation. 

We turn now to the Bourse or Exchange Building on our left. 

26. The Exchange Building. 

This is where big “deals” are made, in the Exchange Build¬ 
ing, round which our crowd of teams (Stereograph 25) was 
gathered. It seems an odd whim to build a Russian Bourse in 
the form of an old Greek temple, and flank it with pillars in 
honor of the classic god of commerce (Stereograph 25), but 
that was the taste of the architects of the first Alexander in 
1815. It is as little Russian as the outside of St. Isaac’s (Stere¬ 
ograph 18). No, it is to Moscow that we must look for quaint¬ 
ness in the national architecture. There we shall find buildings 
with all the flavor of the barbarously splendid old times of Boris 
and Ivan the Terrible. Just now we are in Russia-of-the-present 
and guessing at Russia-of-the-future. The fortunes that are 
made in this Exchange are going to be more and more of a power 
behind the Army and the Throne. 

When we first looked from the roof of St. Isaac’s (Stere¬ 
ograph 19) we saw the spire of the Cathedral of Peter and 
Paul far beyond the Admiralty across the river. Now we may 
enter that cathedral. It is part of the fortress that occupies 
a small island lying north-east of Vasilii Ostrof. The fortress 
has been a state prison since the time of its builder, Peter the 
Great. It was there his son Alexis was imprisoned for con¬ 
spiracy; there the heir-apparent suddenly and mysteriously died 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


91 


just after a stormy interview with the imperious Czar. Peter 
himself was buried in the fortress cathedral, and, with one excep¬ 
tion (his grandson Peter II), all the Russian sovereigns since his 
day have been buried under the same roof. 

27. Burial=Place of the Czars, in the Peter=Paul Church of 
the Fortress, St. Petersburg. 

The body of the great Peter lies here. Alexander I, who 
drove Napoleon’s armies out, rests here too, in a tomb com¬ 
memorating the victories of 1812. Alexander II, who freed the 
serfs, is buried here. Just before us at the left are hung memorial 
wreaths in honor of the late Alexander III, father of the present 
Czar,—not perishable memorials made of real leaves, but wreaths 
executed in gold, silver and jewels, the gifts of monarchs and 
princes all over the world. When M. Faure, then President of 
France, visited St. Petersburg to cement the national alliance in 
1897, he brought with him an offering for this sacred corner, 
an olive branch of gold. 

Notice the two ikons at this nearest (left) corner of the wall. 
One hangs low, nearly facing us, the other is at right angles 
to the first, facing the open space in the middle of the church, 
and each one has a lamp hanging before it according to the 
reverent custom of the place. That must be still another ikon 
on the wall just this side of the balcony-like pulpit. Almost all 
these ikons were painted by priests in certain Russo-Greek 
monasteries. The people love them in spite of, or possibly be¬ 
cause of, their strange stiffness and ceremonial rigidity. In 
Russian eyes they are far holier than Raphael’s Madonnas or the 
frescoes of Fra Angelico. 


92 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


An old Russian song in vogue after the death of Peter the 
Great pictures the feelings of one of the cathedral guards stand¬ 
ing in this spot where we are now:— 

“ In our holy Russia, in the glorious town of Peter, in the Cathedral 
of Peter and Paul, on the right side, by the tombs of the Czars, a young 
soldier was on duty. Standing there he thought, and thinking, he 
began to weep. He wept; it was a river that flowed. He sobbed ; 
it was the throb of waves. Bathed in tears he cried : ‘ Alas, open, ye 
bands of coffins! Open, ye golden coverlets, and thou, O orthodox 
Czar, do thou awake; do thou arise! Look, master, on thy guard; 
contemplate all thine army; see how the regiments are disciplined, 
how the colonels are with the regiments, and all the majors with their 
horses, the captains at the head of their companies, the officers leading 
their divisions, the ensigns supporting the standards. They wait 
for thee I ’ ” 

The sacred pictures, or ikons, that we see on the wall at the 
left are characteristic of Russian churches. If we were near 
enough to see these in detail we should find them representing 
sacred personages in the same stiff, conventional manner, the 
faces and hands painted, and all the rest of the picture a mass 
of gold, silver and precious stones. Thousands upon thousands 
of dollars’ worth of jewels are often set into and around an ikon 
specially reverenced on account of its miracle-working powers. 
The Russian Church, as a rule, discourages sculptured representa¬ 
tions of divine or saintly persons; but the devout pray before 
an ikon just as their brethren in the Latin Church pray before 
a crucifix, a statue or a painted picture. 

We see no seats here, but that is not an exceptional arrange¬ 
ment due to the presence of the imperial tombs. There are 
never any seats for the worshippers in a Russian church. All 
through the long ritual service—it may be one hour, two, three, 
perhaps longer still on some great occasion—we should have to 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


93 


stand; every Russian, even the Czar himself, stands or kneels 
according to the movement of the ritual. The priests—we saw 
some of them at the open-air service, blessing the waters (Ste¬ 
reograph 23)—are magnificently robed, and the singing is almost 
always beautiful. There is a great deal in the Russian church 
service to impress and awe the bystander, even though he was 
born and bred in an alien faith. 

Let us take one last look at this rich interior of the Fortress 
Cathedral with its distant altar and candles, its cavernous, dusky 
roof, and its cold marble floor, under which the bodies of the 
Czars lie ranged,—and go out again under the blue sky into the 
sunshine. 

In midsummer, everybody who can afford it goes away 
from the large cities to the seashore or the country. The royal 
family set the fashion by maintaining country residences, and 
the rich folk have their own villas and country seats. Besides, 
there is, of course, a permanent rural population surrounding the 
towns; and the contrast of high life and low life thus afforded 
is often most striking. 

Let us go out a little way into the country, and get a 
glimpse of the simple, commonplace, out-of-door life of the 
peasants, as a balance for the royal magnificence and gloomy 
splendor of the tombs of the Czars. 

For some time now we shall have occasion to make frequent 
reference to the map “ Environs of St. Petersburg.” The rect¬ 
angles in red on this map, as on the general map of Russia, 
indicate the sections which are shown on a larger scale on other 


94 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


maps. The place we are about to go to now is found on this map 
a few miles to the north-west of St. Petersburg, near Lakhta. 

28. Making Hay in Russia. 

Here., for instance, only a few miles outside St. Petersburg, 
we see a bit of characteristic country life. During harvest-times 
men and women often work together in the fields as we see them 
here. As in most European countries, the women do their share 
(possibly more than their share) of the rougher labor. In sum¬ 
mer they often work bare-headed as we see them now, though 
those gay plaid kerchiefs, knotted about the necks of their calico 
gowns, do service for head-gear when needed. 

Here in the country, just as in town, the men almost univer¬ 
sally wear cloth caps with visors, and blouses loosely tied in 
around the waist above well-worn trousers. 

Aren’t those wooden rakes primitive, clumsy affairs? And 
still more primitive is the way in which the women gather up 
great loads of hay by hand, and carry it themselves to their little 
barns for storage. What would these simple plodders think if 
they could see the modern farm machinery of our own country? 
Almost all agricultural labor here in Russia is done at a great 
disadvantage with the poorest and most out-of-date tools; for, 
in the first place, these simple, kindly folk do not know there 
are any better helps; in the second place, if they did know it, 
few of them have money to buy improved machinery; and, in 
the third place, they are a conservative set; if they had both 
the information and the money, the chances are that they would 
for a time cling to the old, unhandy ways, saying dully: “ What’s 
the use?” 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


95 


Public education has not yet spread so far out from the 
cities, or so far down through the ranks, as to do much for these 
descendants of the serfs; they have not yet waked up. But, if 
we are inclined to criticise the system of a country where too 
much education turns one class of citizens into Nihilists, and 
too little education leaves another class plodding dullards, it 
might be a good idea to remember that it is only forty years since 
the peasants were freed from serfdom, and that it takes time to 
bring about the right educational balance when one has one 
hundred and thirty-two million people to educate! That is the 
case with His Imperial Majesty, Nicholas II, at present. 

The Russian system of peasant land-holding is a curious 
experiment in communistic ownership under an autocratic govern¬ 
ment. Each village is allotted a certain quantity of land, and the 
village commune, or Mir (composed of the peasants themselves), 
is responsible to the State for a certain amount of taxes, seventeen 
dollars a year from each head of a family, married man, or 
widow. Every head of a family is not only allowed but obliged 
to hold some amount of land; the amount is intended to be 
regulated by the number of persons belonging to the family. 
Nearly four hundred million acres of Russian land are thus in 
the hands of the peasantry; but, as a rule, the peasant land¬ 
holder has no permanent right to any particular piece of land, 
—only to a certain share of the whole village tract. The family 
shares may be re-distributed once in a certain number of years, 
at the pleasure of the village council, though every land-holder 
is himself a part of the Mir and can cast a vote regarding any 
question brought up for general discussion. The chairman of 
the Mir is a person of local importance, and the happiness oi 


9 6 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


misery of a village depends to a great extent on his personal 
character. 

Why do not the more enterprising of these young fellows 
with the hay-rakes go off to make their fortunes in the large 
towns? Some of them do, and become rich in trades of various 
sorts; but it is not always an easy matter for a Russian country¬ 
man to seek “ fresh woods and pastures new.” Whether he goes 
or stays, a peasant land-holder belonging to a village commune 
must pay his share of the land tax. If his payments fail while 
he is seeking his fortune in St. Petersburg or Moscow, he may 
be summoned by the village police and summarily sent back to 
his acres by the city authorities. Our Russian-with-the-hoe has 
to confront difficulties somewhat more complicated than those 
of his brethren in other lands. 

But even the Russian-with-the-hoe has a future, and his 
future is coming in over those steel rails that cross the fields 
in front of us. It is coming by way of the telegraph wires that 
we see reaching from pole to pole over these interminable plains. 
Where the railroad and the telegraph come, a better civilization 
follows, and Russia is making enormous strides in her forward 
progress. Forty years ago there were hardly five hundred miles 
of railroad in all Russia. Today there are over twenty-seven 
thousand miles in actual operation, and at least seven thousand 
more in process of construction. In 1899 the government ex¬ 
pended sixty-five million dollars on the extension of railroads 
alone. They cannot be built in a day, nor can they bring modern 
ideas and New World prosperity in a day; but the better times 


are coming. 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


97 


The country round about St. Petersburg needs a good deal 
of encouragement from mankind to make it smile. Its habitual 
expression is rather serious and doubtful. But where time and 
money have been spent upon it a sort of northern fairy-land has 
blossomed. Suppose we turn the other way—move down across 
the Gulf towards the south-west, to Peterhof, and see what 
Peter and his royal successors have succeeded in making of rural 
Russia in the vicinity of their own summer homes. 

The imperial family have many residences. The Winter 
Palace (Stereograph 13) is a ceremonial home, a place for court 
balls and other formal festivities in the height of the social 
season; but the Czar and his household are really most at home 
in the summer palaces of Peterhof and Tsarskoe Selo, country 
suburbs, a few miles west from St. Petersburg proper. Suppose 
we go to Peterhof first. We shall catch glimpses of some great 
people there, and we shall see charming gardens, well worth the 
trouble of a short journey. 

On the map “Environs of St. Petersburg ” Peterhof is found 
about ten miles west of the capital city. To keep our bearings 
while about the Summer Palace we shall need to follow closely 
the special map “Peterhof.” We shall stand first, as we find 
on this map, nearly half way between the landing stage and the 
Grand Chateau or Peterhof Palace, and look south along the 
canal to the palace front. 


29. The Avenue of Fountains, Imperial Palace of Peterhof, 
Russia. 

Is not the Emperor’s garden like a bit of fairy-land? For 
fifteen hundred feet this gay, little canal is lined with fountains, 


9 8 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


trees and gilded statues. That is Peterhof Palace at the head 
of the canal. We might guess from its name and from these 
elaborately constructed water-works that adorn the grounds, 
that the place is another monument to the aquatic tastes and the 
endless ingenuity of Peter the Great. There is no use in trying 
to get away from the reach of his personality in and about St. 
Petersburg. It is everywhere. 

The fountains at the head of the canal almost hide the palace 
from where we stand. We can go nearer if we like, almost 
among those feathery jets of water. The tallest one, in the center, 
is fully eighty feet high. 

30. Peterhof Palace, the Czar’s Summer Residence. 

It looks as if this great stairway might be as wet as the 
ascent of the bed of the Imatra Rapids (Stereograph 5) ; but 
the people, as you see, can walk at the foot of the terrace among 
the fountains, assuring us as to the existence of some dry avenue 
of passage. The fact is, the water has its own staircase, and 
people have another just beyond. It must be a beautiful sight 
to see when the fountains are illuminated on special festival days. 
There is an air of frank gayety about the place which is very 
attractive. 

Peterhof is, during the summer, a centre of interest to trav¬ 
ellers on account of its occupancy by the royal family. The 
present monarch does not spend nearly all the summer at Peter¬ 
hof, but he and the gracious Empress often receive here their 
guests of honor. 

We will climb now on the left of the fountains to the road 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


99 


which runs along the front of the Palace. The map shows that 
we shall be looking toward the west or toward our right here. 

31. Equipages before Peterhof Palace. 

It is a common thing to see this larch-bordered avenue full 
of carriages as now. These happen to bring, not soldiers nor 
diplomats nor political magnates, but members of a Geological 
Commission visiting Russia during the summer (1897). 

The Palace itself certainly is not especially beautiful. Rus¬ 
sian architecture of the last two hundred years has not much to 
recommend it or distinguish it from showy, florid building in 
other parts of Europe. It is only when we see Moscow that we 
shall really know characteristic Russian architecture. And it is 
worth knowing. The fantastic dome crowning the cupola yonder 
is a hint of what we are to see in Moscow. 

The Russians themselves tell a good story about how the 
Czar Nicholas I one day asked a certain sentry whom he found 
pacing up and down a certain beat here in the Peterhof park, 
why he was stationed at that particular spot. The sentry did 
not know; he was ordered there; that was all. The Czar asked 
the officer in charge. The guard did not know. It had always 
been customary to keep a sentry perpetually pacing that par¬ 
ticular path. The inquiry was pushed still farther back, to 
officers who knew only the unbroken tradition; and at last it 
was found that, away back in the eighteenth-century days of 
Catherine IT, a sentry had been set to guard a certain rosebud 
which the empress desired to see unfold, and, as the order for a 
guard had never been formally revoked, there had been a guard 
ever since. “Theirs not to question why!” 

L. of C. 


IOO 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


The visiting geologists, whose carriages we see here are, 
by virtue of their profession, living interrogation points. Ah, 
well,—it takes all sorts of people to make up a world. 

This meeting with the Geological Commission is an inter¬ 
esting incident. Our main purpose in coming up to the palace 
itself is to see the fountains from still another standpoint. Of 
course, the fountains are on our right here; we have only to turn 
in that direction to have them spread out before us. According 
to the map we shall then be facing north. 


32. The Fountains, from Peterhof Palace. 

Surely there is nothing on earth more beautiful in its way 
than water dancing in the sun ! And here the statues that seem 
to be playing with the waters are gilded so that they gleam and 
glitter through the spray, giving a double effect of gayety. It 
is, perhaps, a childish sort of spectacle. The Russians are frankly 
fond of striking colors and bright, glittering, shining things, like 
a nation of good-natured children, and we certainly have no 
notion of criticising them for it here; the whole scene has such 
an air of enticing gayety. The feathery larches and fir trees 
are not tall enough to give any effect of cathedral sombreness. 
They only offer green shade in contrast to the glitter and gleam 
and splashing jollity of the fountains. 

Some sculptor has connected these bronze water-sprites with 
this most spectacular collection of fountains in many ingenious 
ways. 

Away at the farther end of the canal we see the shore of the 
Gulf of Finland, for Peterhof is a seaside resort. We will go 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


lOI 


down on the Czar’s pier presently, for important guests are com¬ 
ing and going. Perhaps we may catch a glimpse of them. 

But what is it they tell us? The Czarina and the Empress 
of Germany are driving through the park, and we must hurry if 
we wish to see them. Dancing fountains are beautiful, but live 
empresses are still more attractive to us austere republican folks! 

They are to be found in the park off to our right. 

33. Their Majesties the Empresses of Russia and Germany 
Driving through Peterhof Park. 

It is the Czarina who sits nearest to us. The Empress of 
Germany is at her right hand. 

The Czarina is said to be both lovely and lovable, the sort 
of woman whom we could wish to see on a throne. She has three 
little daughters, but there is as yet (1901) no Czarevitch or Crown 
Prince. She herself was the daughter of the Grand Duke of 
Hesse-Darmstadt and Princess Alice of England, which makes 
her Victoria’s granddaughter and a niece of King Edward VII. 
When she was married she followed the custom of new Czarinas, 
and took a Russian name, Alexandra Feodorovna. The Emperor 
of Germany is her own cousin, for his mother was the Princess 
Royal of England, Victoria’s eldest daughter. The German 
Empress was Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. 

It is not often that such great people visit their cousins. 
The European papers (1897) have been full of the doings of the 
last day or two since their Imperial Majesties came from Ger¬ 
many. Receptions, reviews, state dinners,—it means hard work 
in its way to wear a crowned head. 


102 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


This carriage that the Czarina uses today is comparatively 
simple; but the one in which she rode through Moscow to her 
coronation,—that was like the carriages in Aladdin’s stable, if, 
indeed, Aladdin kept horses as well as magic travelling carpets. 
The coach itself was gilded like the most elegant of jewel boxes, 
drawn by eight snow-white stallions in gilded harness, their 
heads decorated with snowy ostrich feathers. It must have been 
a gorgeous sight, but, after all, this more modest equipage suits 
the gentle lady very well. Good fortune to her! 

There are all sorts of odd, little pavilions and cottages scat¬ 
tered through these grounds, associated in one way or another 
with the studies and recreations of different royal personages. 
We shall see one in another part of the grounds. 

34. Narcissus Fountain, on Empress Island, Peterhof. 

The Peterhof gardens are full of statues; the fountains 
themselves are often of statuary, half hidden while the waters 
play. The waters are so beautiful we forgive them for hiding 
the statuary; but when once in a while we come upon a basin 
where the water is not turned on, it is likely to be worth looking 
at. This is one of the designs most admired for the ingenuity of 
its idea and the grace with which the idea has been carried out. 
Narcissus, we remember, was the youth in the old Greek story 
whom Nemesis punished for his cold temperament, making him 
learn to his sorrow how it feels to be hopelessly in love. The 
poor boy was bewitched by the beauty of his own reflection in a 
fountain; he gazed upon it, breathed vows and petitions to it, 
but sighed and swore in vain, for the charming image would 
never come up out of the water to meet him. 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


103 


And here he is, poor lad, watching for the enchanting reflec¬ 
tion to reappear, as it will do when the gardener turns the water 
on once more. 

If we had time, we would go into this pavilion near by, for 
it is modeled after the old Pompeian houses. But we will not 
spare the time for it now. 

Again comes the word that there is something to see; this 
time it is the Russian Imperial Guard down on the pier at the 
end of the canal (Stereograph 31), waiting for the German 
Emperor to embark for St. Petersburg. 

35. The Russian Imperial Guard Awaiting the German 
Emperor, Peterhof Pier. 

We might know this was a holiday occasion, for these sol¬ 
diers, each one ready for a fight to the death when the right 
time comes, are just now taking life easily without over-strict 
adherence to the etiquette of “ eyes front.” See, several of these 
stiff, bearded fellows are looking this way with smiling curiosity. 
There are both German and Russian flags floating in the light 
breeze which blows up the Gulf of Finland. 

The map shows we are looking west on the pier. So St. 
Petersburg is still farther up the Gulf back of us (east). 

The yacht Alexandria is lying here alongside the pier. That 
is a bit of her bows at the right. 

Russia’s main strength lies in her men, trained to fight for 
God and the Czar. Every man over twenty-one is liable to be 
called into the army. They are drilled to the last point of obe¬ 
dient effectiveness, fearing nothing, enduring anything, and filled 
with almost fanatical faith in the righteous certainty that the Czar 


J04 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


must always win. It is said that there are some fifty thousand 
officers in the Russian army. These officers seldom, if ever, 
rise to their position from a place in the ranks. Certain social 
as well as soldierly qualifications are necessary to the holder of 
an officer’s commission. Indeed, there are a number of dis¬ 
tinguished foreigners in the Russian service. Curiously enough 
(curiously, considering the old-time attitude of France and 
Russia), Louis Napoleon, the second son of Princess Clothilde, 
is a colonel of the Czarina’s Lancers. How times do change! 

The royal guests are about leaving Peterhof, so we will go 
too, returning to St. Petersburg in hopes to catch another glimpse 
of them there. Wilhelm II and the Empress Augusta Victoria 
will be in the city for a day or two longer. 

36. The Yacht Alexandria, Conveying the German Emperor, 
Passing the German Cadet Ship Charlotta. 

It is fortunate that we hurried back from Peterhof. We are 
in time to see the royal yacht Alexandria witty the German Em¬ 
peror on board. First, though, we should understand our location. 
Turn to the general map of St. Petersburg, and look for the St. 
Nicholas bridge over the Great Neva, some distance to the left, 
or west, of the Palace bridge, which we have seen before. A 
little to the left of this Nicholas bridge on the south bank of the 
Neva is found a red circle enclosing the number 36, and from 
this point our two red lines branch out toward the north-east, 
indicating our location. Now we can point out some familiar 
landmarks in the scene before us. 

That is the Nicholas bridge yonder, in front of us, at the 
right, and beyond the bridge to the left of that first tall mast, 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


105 

we can make out the needle-pointed spire of the fortress cath¬ 
edral of Peter and Paul. We saw that spire once before, from 
the roof of St. Isaac’s (Stereograph 19), but we were a little 
nearer to it then. By the way, Kaiser Wilhelm himself has just 
been over there to visit the burial place of the Czars in the 
cathedral; he brought from Berlin a memorial wreath for the 
tomb of the Czar’s father, Alexander III (Stereograph 27). St. 
Isaac’s and the Admiralty are away off at our right, not quite 
in range as we stand here. 

The large building on the river bank, opposite where we are 
now, is the Art Academy which we have also seen before from 
another point on the roof of St. Isaac’s (Stereograph 21). 

And here comes the Alexandria, bearing the Czar with Kai¬ 
ser Wilhelm as his guest. It was this Alexandria that met the 
German visitors off Kronstadt the day of their arrival in their 
own German vessel, and she has been at their service ever since. 
The Czar’s uncle, the Grand Duke Alexis, is the Russian High 
Admiral, but, while they were crossing over from Kronstadt to 
Peterhof, Wilhelm II was created by courtesy an Admiral of 
the Russian fleet. It was a graceful way to play with rather large 
commissions. 

Don’t you envy those German cadets on the Charlotta ? Who 
would not be a sailor-boy if he could perch picturesquely in mid¬ 
air as these lads are doing, to salute the heads of the two great 
nations, Russia and Germany, as they go by? All the same, one 
would need a sailor’s steady nerves to stand like a decorative 
flag-staff on one of those dizzy yards, as those boys are proudly 
doing. It is devoutly to be hoped that none of these boys may 
ever sail up the Neva on any less peaceful occasion than the 
present. 


io6 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


We cannot follow royalty everywhere, but we are fortunate 
enough to be admitted to certain ceremonies in the court-yard 
of the Alexander Hospital. The institution is under German 
management, and this visit of the Emperor and Empress nat¬ 
urally tends to give it special prestige. It is situated over on 
the island, not far back from the river, but beyond our range of 
vision on the left, as we see on the map. 

37. Founding of the Alexander Hospital, St. Petersburg, 
by the Emperor and Empress of Germany. 

Are we not fortunate? We do not exactly occupy front 
seats at this spectacle, but, better than that, we are precisely 
opposite the “ front seats,” or place of honor, where we can 
see the royal guests very well. That is Kaiser Wilhelm, the 
sovereign of the great German Empire, standing on the portico at 
ihe right of the head of the stairs. See, his breast is covered with 
decorations, and he holds some sort of paper in his hand. It is the 
Empress Augusta Victoria who stands next to him, and the ladies 
in the background are all court beauties, with enough titles and 
blue blood to populate a whole library of novels of European 
high life. Do you see that tall, bearded man at the extreme right, 
almost behind the trunk of this tree out in the court-yard? He 
is the Russian Grand Duke Michael, a brother of Alexander II 
and great-uncle to the present Czar, the General Field-Marshal 
and Chief of Artillery. It must be a strange experience to come 
near being the autocrat of one-seventh of the whole earth, and 
yet never quite mount the throne. Wouldn’t it be interesting 
to know what these great folk think in their own hearts about 
the drama in which they are cast for such prominent roles ? Do 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


107 


they always take themselves seriously, always think of them¬ 
selves in capital letters, as it were? It must be immensely dif¬ 
ficult—if indeed it be possible—for an Emperor to put the habitual 
attitude of the public quite out of his consciousness and feel 
just as any other man would feel; that is, it must be difficult 
after one is grown up. They tell here in Russia a pretty story 
of a little daughter of stern Nicholas I, who said one day to 
the monarch whose frowns were something unspeakable, “ I know, 
dear papa, you have no wish greater than to make mamma happy.” 
Dear little maid! But she never lived to grow up. 

The choir-men here in front of us are all ready with their 
music. There is to be a solemn religious service, and, after it 
is over, the great Russian dignitaries are to be formally presented 
to the German sovereigns. As for us, we are neither Russian 
nor great, so this will be our own nearest view of their Majes¬ 
ties. At all events, we have had our glimpse of the august heads 
of the vast German empire. That is what we came for. And it 
is our last opportunity, too, for the royal visit is about to end. 

It is not, however, the end of our opportunity to see great 
people of one sort or another, for at the time we are seeing St. 
Petersburg (1897) the Czar and the Czarina welcome the com¬ 
ing almost while they speed the parting guest. The decorations 
which we saw in Peterhof Park (Stereograph 33) have already 
been hastily remodeled to do honor to another guest, M. Felix 
Faure, President of the Republic of France. Wherever the 
initials of Wilhelm had appeared, there are now emblazoned the 
letters R. F. (Republique Frangaise), and the black-white-and-red 
flags of Germany have been taken down and replaced by the 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


108 

French tricolor. It is a good thing for the public treasury that 
the decorations can thus easily be made over and so serve a 
second time. Their first installation must have cost a pretty 
penny. 

President Faure also has, so we hear, been met at Kron¬ 
stadt by the Czar and the Grand Duke Alexis, and taken on board 
the Alexandria to Peterhof. From Peterhof he has come to St. 
Petersburg. The mayor of the city has offered him bread and 
salt, symbolic of the hospitality of the metropolis, and now one 
function rapidly succeeds another in the programme arranged 
for his entertainment or in his honor. 

One of the most important and significant courtesies ex¬ 
tended to President Faure is the Czar’s invitation to assist in 
laying the corner-stone of the new Troitsky bridge over the 
Neva. The old bridge is a movable affair made of wood, some¬ 
what after the fashion of the Palace bridge which we inspected 
from near the Exchange on Vasilii Ostrof (Stereograph 24). 
The new one is to be of permanent form and materials. It had 
been planned to make the new bridge the text for special festivi¬ 
ties in honor of the silver wedding of Alexander III; but when 
man—even a Czar—proposes, it is still God who disposes. Alexan¬ 
der’s body is laid away in the cathedral of Peter and Paul (Ster¬ 
eograph 27), and it is Alexander’s son who sits on the throne 
when the great day comes. All that President Faure could do for 
the Czar Alexander was to bring a golden olive branch to lay 
upon his tomb in that corner we so well remember in the fortress 
cathedral. 

Either the general map of St. Petersburg or the map of 
the central section of the city will indicate the place where we 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. I09 

are to see this most interesting ceremony. We find the Troitsky 
bridge about as far to the east as the Nicholas bridge was to the 
west of the Palace bridge. The corner-stone laying is to be near 
the southern end of the bridge. 

38. The Czar of Russia and the French President Laying 
the Corner=stone of the Troitsky Bridge. 

The Neva river is behind us. We are looking nearly south, 
facing the city proper. And what a crowd of Russian celebrities! 

This gorgeously arrayed personage with the jewelled dome 
of a crown and robes stiff with embroidery is the highest acting 
official of the Russian Church, Monseigneur Palladius, the 
Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. The Czar is ex officio head of 
the Church in a certain sense, but the Metropolitan is its head 
so far as practical facts are concerned, being the presiding officer 
of the Synod, under whose jurisdiction all questions of ecclesi¬ 
astical polity are decided. And here is the great Nicholas him¬ 
self, directly facing the Metropolitan. He looks just like the 
pictures we have seen; we should know him at once. His simple, 
soldierly costume seems wholly unassuming, compared with the 
Metropolitan’s splendor, even with all the decorations on his 
breast. His close-trimmed full beard is just as we have seen it 
in his portraits, and he has the same way of looking straight out 
from under his eyebrows. He looks like a soldier and a gentle¬ 
man. What a frightful weight of responsibility there is resting 
on those square shoulders of his! To think that the lives and 
fortunes of over a hundred and thirty million- people (almost 
twice as many as the whole population of the United States) 
are absolutely at his disposal! We free-and-easy, as-good-as-the- 


no 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


next-man Americans can hardly realize the different conditions 
that prevail in Russia, our customary modes of thought are so 
unlike those of the land of the Czar. An American, talking 
with a prominent Russian not long ago about the importance of 
the construction of the great Trans-Siberian railway and its 
prospective opening of a way for Russian troops and supplies 
to reach the open seas, observed that, after all, it would be dif¬ 
ficult to utilize the railroad fully, in an emergency, for the trans¬ 
portation of any considerable number of men or amounts of 
supplies, because of insufficiency of rolling-stock. “ You don’t 
understand at all,” said the Russian. “ If it were so ordered, 
every railway car in the empire would be taken for the purpose.” 

“ But the damage to general business-” “ That would not be 

considered. If the thing were necessary it would simply be 
done.” 

But it is not within the bounds of human possibility for 
any one man, even Nicholas II, to personally originate or even 
to investigate fully all the projects of the government. Some of 
the other men whom we see here before us are actually a part 
of the autocracy, its vital organs. 

That is President Felix Faure at the Czar’s right hand, 
exactly facing us, the simple republican in the plain coat, just 
such as our own Chief Executive might wear. He is, of course, 
the guest of honor. The man at the Czar’s left hand, with the 
full gray beard and dark hair, a cluster of decorations on his 
coat, is the Lord Mayor of St. Petersburg. He is the official who 
proffered to President Faure on his arrival the traditional bread- 
and-salt, as, indeed, he had done a few days previously for the 
German Emperor and Empress. 

But let us see who else is here. 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


II 


Look over to the left of the group first. At the extreme left, 
in the front row of spectators, do you see that middle-aged man 
in uniform, with shoulder-straps, a gilt belt and decorations on 
his coat—he has turned his head away to speak to another by¬ 
stander? That is the Grand Duke Constantine, a cousin of the 
Czar. The man behind him, facing towards the left, is the Czar’s 
uncle, the Grand Duke Paul. The decorated officer facing Con¬ 
stantine (the one with a high, bare forehead) is another uncle, 
the Grand Duke Alexis, High Admiral of the Russian fleet. 
He is the one who went down to Kronstadt with the Czar on the 
Alexandria to welcome in turn both the German sovereigns and 
the French President. Then there is an elderly man at the left 
of Alexis, or at his left hand, wearing huge, fringed epaulets, 
with a broad sash across his chest, and more decorations. He is 
Vice-Admiral Tyrtoff, the Minister of the Navy. 

Yes, there is another most important person just behind the 
vice-admiral. Do you see just over the fringed epaulet on the 
vice-admiral’s left shoulder that man with the short, white beard 
and the high, square roof of a head, a man who looks as if a good 
deal might be going on inside that same head? Look at him 
twice. He is Vannofski, the Minister of War (in 1897), a mem¬ 
ber of the Imperial Council and—next to the Czar—the leading 
member of the Committee on the Trans-Siberian Railway and, 
in 1901, appointed Minister of Public Instruction. 

Prince Bieloselsky is a distinguished looking man. He is 
the handsome, tall, bearded officer whom we can see just over 
the crowned head of Monseigneur the Metropolitan. You can 
identify him by the many horizontal bars of gilt braid over the 
breast of his coat and the broad sash which crosses his chest 


112 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


diagonally from the left shoulder. His dignified head hardly 
needs a crown like that of Monseigneur Palladius. 

The plainer person just behind Prince Bieloselsky’s right 
shoulder—at Minister Vannofski’s left hand—is a prominent 
officer, General Boisdeffre. The light in his eyes makes him 
scowl a bit. Yes, there is still another famous officer, General 
Gervais, the rather thin-faced, care-worn man with epaulets and 
sash and decorations, who stands just behind handsome Prince 
Bieloselski’s left shoulder. 

The notables are really too many for us to note them all. 
Every man here is Somebody-in-Particular, somebody whose 
birth or official position, or both, entitle him to the greatest 
honors of the capital. And the people on the grand-stand and 
the balconies are important too. Grand duchesses and princesses 
are as thick as blackberries here today, and one must needs be 
very great indeed to be much noticed. 

How President Faure’s simple republican dignity does stand 
out in contrast with the magnificence of his hosts! People 
count it a very significant courtesy on the Czar’s part, this invita¬ 
tion of the French President to assist in these consecration cere¬ 
monies. It is generally understood that it indicates a definitely 
friendly alliance of the two nations, the French and the Russian. 
So it is not merely a gay holiday show at which we are gazing 
here. It is an outward sign of a serious political attitude which 
may prove to be of vast importance to France, to Russia, to all 
Europe, even, it may be, to the whole civilized world. Nobody 
can yet tell how far the widening ripples from this little courtesy 
are going to spread. 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 113 

President Faure has not long to stay. His first day was 
spent in receptions at Peterhof. His second day has seen the 
laying of the corner-stone of the Troitsky bridge. Next he is 
invited to review the Russian troops at Krasnoe Selo, a few miles 
outside the city. We will go see the review too; but, on the way, 
we shall have time for a glimpse of some other interesting places 
in the city and, the region round about. 

On our way to the railway station we can see one more 
St. Petersburg church, the famous cathedral of the Holy Trinity. 
This is found on the general map, nearly a mile and a half directly 
south of the Admiralty. 

39. The Soldiers* Church, St. Petersburg, with the Monu= 
ment of Turkish Cannon. 

It reminds us of St. Isaac’s, though it is not so large, and 
its domes are differently arranged. Besides, St. Isaac’s great 
central dome was covered with gold-leaf, and these five clustered 
roofs are all sky blue, sprinkled thick with stars of gold. Russia 
does delight in gay effects of color. 

This church itself is less than seventy years old, but it stands 
on the site of an older chapel where Peter the Great wedded his 
lowly born Catherine,—a match of doubtful promise according to 
general principles of suitability, but it turned out well, for the 
Empress made up in tact and good sense what she lacked in 
birth, education and breeding. 

This present church was consecrated in 1835 and specially 
attached to the Ismailof Regiment of Guards, so it is popularly 
known as the Soldiers’ Church. Indeed, one is reminded here 
more of war on earth than of peace in heaven, for the golden 


114 RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

stars and crosses are nowhere near as impressive as that unique 
monument facing it in the square. That monument is a memorial 
of the Russian victories over Turkey in 1877. St. Petersburg 
delights in monuments, and this one meant a good deal, for 
all those vertical columns that combine to make up the suc¬ 
cessive sections or stories of the metal shaft are cannon cap¬ 
tured from the Turks. Counting the granite base and the 
bronze figure of Victory on the summit, with her laurel wreath 
in one hand and an olive branch in the other, the whole monu¬ 
ment is nearly one hundred feet high. 

It was a great war, that war of 1877 with Turkey. It came 
near being much greater than it was, too, for if the other 
European Powers had not interfered, in all human probability 
the Russians would have taken Constantinople and made the 
dream of the nation come true at last, that is, gained possession 
of the coveted door to the Mediterranean Sea. 

The time is not yet. 

To come down to trifles, what is that wagon yonder, just 
coming towards us around the corner near the monument ? Surely 
a sort of wagon built like ordinary European and American 
vehicles, and the horse has no douga nodding over his shoulders. 
We have become so used to things Russian that it is a genuine 
surprise to see something so much like home. 

Not far from Peterhof is another summer resort of the im¬ 
perial family, Tsarskoe Selo (The Czar’s Village). It has been 
a favorite retreat of city people ever since the beginnings of life 
in St. Petersburg. The little town is only fifteen miles from the 
metropolis, and the fact that the imperial family spend some 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


115 

time here every year attracts each season a large colony of sum¬ 
mer residents and a troop of summer visitors. There are two 
especially interesting palaces at Tsarskoe Selo, belonging to the 
royal family. We shall see both of them. 

Again we must have recourse to the map “ Environs of St. 
Petersburg." There we find Tsarskoe Selo about fifteen miles 
south of the main city. 

40. The Alexander Palace, Tsarskoe Selo. 

We come in sight of one of these palaces,—the Alexander 
Palace,—as we cross the Lesser Garden of the Imperial Park. 
It certainly looks like a delightful house, and it is no wonder 
the great Alexander was so fond of it. They sav he used to 
live very simply here, with little show or state. One day in his 
time an English lady was walking down this path where we are 
now, when two dogs that were being exercised by a gentleman 
near by ran up to her with doggish curiosity; she was frightened, 
and their owner, seeing this, called them off and apologized to 
her for their bad manners. He seemed a very kindly and agree¬ 
able person, so the Englishwoman, being anxious to see all the 
sights intelligently, asked him all sorts of questions about the 
palace and the different pavilions and monuments in the grounds. 
“ But most of all,” she confided to him, “ I want to see the Em¬ 
peror. Where do you suppose I could catch a glimpse of him?” 
“Oh, you will very likely see him around here somewhere,” her 
guide assured her. “He often walks here.” She passed on and 
later met an officer, to whom she repeated her question about the 
Emperor. “That was the Emperor himself, madam,” said the 
officer, “ the gentleman with the dogs.” 


n6 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


The same simplicity and hospitality are still kept up in this 
lovely, rambling park. These little folks sitting on the bank 
are children of the people, and this park is practically a free, 
open playground for them and such as they, with boats and 
swings and all sorts of out-of-door games freely at their com¬ 
mand. The privilege does not seem to be abused either, for these 
embryo Russians, while they love to romp and run like human 
children the world over, seem to have naturally gentler manners 
than our young Americans, and can be trusted to keep out of 
uncouth pranks and destructive mischief. 

The young Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses have their fun 
here, too. The Duchess of Edinburgh, Victoria’s daughter-in-law, 
is an aunt of the present Czar Nicholas. When she was a little 
girl the size of our shy friend here on the grass, she used to play 
about here with her dolls. She and her brothers planted a good 
many of the willows that grow so abundantly alongside the water¬ 
courses (is not that a beautiful tree growing out over the wa¬ 
ter?) ; for they had the pretty custom of setting out the pussy¬ 
willow twigs that were given to them at church every Palm 
Sunday. 

Continuing our walk to the part of the park known as the 
Old Garden, we come to a larger palace, an immense range of 
apartments with a frontage of nearly eight hundred feet. 

41. The Largest of the Imperial Palaces, Tsarskoe Seld. 

They say that once upon a time, in the reign of the great 
Catherine II (1762-1796), all the sculptured carvings on this 
huge fagade were covered with gold-leaf, making the building as 
gorgeous as a giant’s jewel-box. It was Catherine’s way of keep- 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 117 

ing up to the luxurious standard of European court life in the 
days when Louis XV set the pace. 

The bulb-shaped domes, clustered on the roof yonder, show 
the location of a chapel where the royal family worship on spe¬ 
cial occasions. If we were to go in, we should find ikons set up 
to guide their devotions, and an open space in which the royal 
worshippers may stand or kneel. The palace apartments—as 
we might imagine from the outside—are almost endless in num¬ 
ber (just count the windows that we can see from this one 
spot) , and they are furnished like the most wildly extravagant 
rooms in the fairy-tales of our childhood. One has a floor of 
ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl in elaborate patterns, and 
walls incrusted with lapis-lazuli. Another has its walls entirely 
covered with panels of amber curiously cut and carved in high 
relief. It is a dream of regal recklessness, and sets off in strong 
contrast the comparatively quiet tastes of the present Czar. 

We are becoming so used to the little droschkys as to take 
them as a matter of course; and really they are indispensable if 
one wishes to cover the ground quickly. Many of these droschky 
drivers, as we find, on talking with them, do not own their 
teams, but have contracts with an employer. They are obliged 
to pay to him a certain amount each day,—so much for ordinary 
days, twice as much for festival days; their own share is the 
difference between this amount paid over and the amount re¬ 
ceived from patrons. Sometimes they come out badly in bal¬ 
ancing the accounts. But they are, for the most part, a good- 
natured set, and take life as it comes, thankful that hard times 
are no harder. 


Il8 RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

42. The Lake and Island in the Imperial Grounds, Tsarskoe 
Selo. 

We have here just one more glimpse of the beautiful park 
before we go over to the great parade grounds. We could not 
go without seeing the lake; everybody goes rowing or sailing 
on the lake. Men are always in readiness to take visitors out 
without charge, as the guests of the Czar. See that row-boat 
crossing the lake and almost opposite the monument, with the 
odd, beak-shaped decorations. Can it be? It looks as if it 
had for passengers the same children whom we saw only a little 
while ago, sitting on the bank near that big willow tree, over by 
the Alexander Palace (Stereograph 40). 

That pavilion over at the farther end of the lake is the 
Alexandrina pavilion, named for a little daughter of Nicholas I 
who used to go there to feed the swans. 

Now if we wish to see something of the military review, we 
must drive over to Krasnoe Selo, or go by train; for crowds are 
already assembling to witness the annual display. Every August 
a review of some forty or fifty thousand troops takes place, be¬ 
ginning with a solemn benediction of the national flags by the 
Metropolitan. This time, the presence of the French President 
gives the occasion special distinction. 

Turning to our map of the environs of St. Petersburg again 
we find Krasnoe Selo some ten miles to the west of Tsarskoe 
Selo. The country round about there is nearly level, and just 
outside the town a great plain is devoted to military evolutions 
and manoeuvres. A small hill has been artificially constructed 
as a standpoint for observation, whence the movements of the 
troops can be seen for a long distance all around. 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


II 9 


43. The Czar of Russia at Krasnoe Selo. 

It is like being in a gigantic theatre just before the per¬ 
formance begins. There are the regiments yonder, great, solid 
masses of men, trained to almost mechanical accuracy of move¬ 
ment, waiting for the word of command. This little hill at our 
left is the one where the observation stand is placed. The French 
President has just alighted from a carriage at the foot of this 
slope and—as the guest of honor—escorted the Czarina up the 
stairs to the pavilion from which they are to watch the manoeuvres. 
(These cords, stretched down to the ground and fastened by tent- 
pegs, are the guy-ropes of one of the pavilions.) Now the Czar 
follows with the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, the wife of his 
uncle the Grand Duke Vladimir; and the movement of the troops 
will soon begin. The Czar himself is not to stay in the reviewing- 
stand. He will go down to the field to lead his own regiment, 
while the Czarina and President Faure and the lesser celebrities 
look on. 

Now let us move off hurriedly to the right, where we can 
get a better view of the advancing troops. 

44. Review of the Russian Troops by the French President. 

That is the little hill at whose side we waited to see the 
Czar pass. He and the Grand Duchess Marie went up those stairs 
which we now face. You see that pavilion at the right, where two 
people are standing conspicuously in front of the others? The 
lady there in the light-colored gown is the Czarina and it is her 
escort, President Faure, whose coat looks so black in contrast 
with her airy chiffons. 

The Czar has already gone galloping by at the head of his 


20 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


regiment; a magnificent horseman he is, too. And now regiment 
after regiment is advancing from its place in that black mass 
we saw a little while ago in the edge of the plain (Stereograph 
43), to show off before the first lady of the land and her guest. 
The Russian soldiers adore the Czar as if he were actually a god 
in the flesh; and if they do not always adore their officers they 
often do, and in any case they are disciplined into the most 
punctilious respect of manner. One odd characteristic of Rus¬ 
sian army service is the way in which soldiers are taught to reply 
in concert, using certain prescribed, formal phrases, when com¬ 
plimented by a superior officer. If a colonel is pleased with the 
appearance of his men, and says, “ Thank you, my children, you 
have done well,” the proper thing, according to Russian military 
etiquette, is for the privates to respond promptly, with one accord, 
“We are glad to earn our colonel’s approbation.” 

And don’t they have to work to earn approbation! Cavalry 
men are put through courses of evolutions equal to the most 
spectacular riding in Colonel Cody’s Wild West Show. Infantry 
men are taught to jump into and across deep ditches, to leap 
over high bars, to cross streams by walking a narrow rail, to 
scale smooth walls without ladders,—every sort of circus per¬ 
formance that could possibly come into use in a military cam¬ 
paign. And then, besides, there are corps of scouts, practised in 
every sort of strategic movements, many of which are far beyond 
the powers of any ordinary private soldier. In fact, here in 
Russia the limitations of the private soldier are reached in direc¬ 
tions very different from those where our own soldiers’ limita¬ 
tions are found. Here the average private is wholly uneducated, 
and no work involving any reading, writing or consultation of 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


121 


maps or charts can be entrusted to him. The Russian army 
is a school with an elaborately varied curriculum. 

The uniforms that we see resemble very closely (and one 
might almost think unfortunately) the uniforms of German sol¬ 
diers. The prevailing color is dark green, though there are 
enough touches of grayish blue and dark red, gold and silver, 
scattered over the field, to lighten and brighten the sombreness 
of the green. The horses are fine and very well trained. 

Still the regiments are advancing, advancing, with more to 
follow. It is really bewildering to try to watch so many figures, 
ready to shift and change at any instant. Let us rest our eyes 
by taking a look at a row of spectators, representatives from vari¬ 
ous foreign legations in St. Petersburg. 

45. Foreign Representatives at the Military Review, Kras= 
noe Selo. 

A good-looking set of men they are, and riding some first- 
rate horses. It is a curious bit of international courtesy, when 
we come to think of it, to invite representatives of a dozen foreign 
nations to inspect Russia’s equipment for movements defensive 
and offensive against other people, themselves potentially in¬ 
cluded. But the serious side of military affairs cannot be always 
present to the mind of even a Russian general. Today it is 
only a gay pageant to which the neighbors are bidden; that 
is all. 

And, in any case, probably there would be representatives 
of other governments here to see the show, if not in one capacity, 
then in another. It is an old joke that whenever German troops 
are being put through their manoeuvres the crowd of on-lookers 


122 


RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


always includes French observers in citizens’ clothes. Indeed, 
the tale is told that a jocose policeman, endeavoring to clear a 
crowd out of the way of an advancing body of German cavalry, 
once called out: “ Gentlemen and Messieurs the French officers, 
please move on! ” 

46. The Czar, Czarina and President of France Leaving 
Krasnoe Selo. 

Everything comes to an end. The troops have paraded and 
been put through their paces to everybody’s satisfaction. It is 
time to go. 

We have come back, you see, to the convenient spot where 
we saw the Czar and the Grand Duchess Marie ascending the 
stairs (Stereograph 43). Here is the Czar once more, after tak¬ 
ing his part in the parade, with the lovely woman who shares 
his throne and their dignified guest from Paris. All three of 
the great ones look more simple and unpretentious than the 
officer who follows them down the stairs from the pavilion. 
The men near us have the right hand lifted in salute; only the fat 
coachman seems privileged to give both hands as well as his 
mind to the horses. If a coachman’s girth is the measure of his 
master’s importance,—and they told us so in St. Petersburg,— 
this barrel-shaped Jehu is well fitted for his position. As a 
matter of fact, a broad expanse of frock like that may include 
some wadding as well as good orthodox flesh and blood. An 
effect of dignified corpulence is the elegant end desired. 

Now that the troops are out of the way, we can see the im¬ 
mense extent of the level plain used for their evolutions. See 
how far it stretches away toward those distant masses of trees! 


.RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 


123 


A body of soldiers, detailed for the purpose, keeps the crowd 
back, so as to give the imperial carriage free room to move away 
with an effective sweep. The Czar and Czarina and the President 
will in a moment more be on their way to the special train which 
takes them back to St. Petersburg, and after a banquet and some 
minor festivities, the friendly visit of the executive head of the 
great republic will be brought to a close. Good-night, then, and 
good-bye to Their Majesties and His Excellency. And may the 
golden olive branch which M. Faure brought with him presage 
peace for generations to come! 

The significance of the French President’s visit must neeab 
be especially emphasized in our minds, from the fact that our 
own next movement is to be to Moscow, where so many of the 
old landmarks, at every turn, are associated with the very dif¬ 
ferent sort of visit paid to Russia by Napoleon and his army 
less than one hundred years ago. 




List of Places on the Maps “St* Petersburg” 
and “St* Petersburg, Central Part*” 


1. Slaughter House. F 8 

2. Academy of Arts. D5 

3. Catholic Theological Academy. D4 

4. Oirthodox Theological Academy 17 

5. Medical Academy. G3 

6 . Mlitary Law School. E 6 

7. Nicholas Academy.D5, 6 

8 . Academy of Science. E5 

9. Administration of Imperial Stud H5 

10. Address Office. E7 

11. Grand Admiralty. E5 

12. New Admiralty. D 6 

13. Aquarium. F3 

14. Triumphal Arch of Moscow- F9 

15. Narva Triumphal Arch. C9 

16. Archives of the Empire. F5 

17. Old Arsenal.EF4 

18. New Arsenal. H3 

19. Artillery Administration. G4 

20. State Bank. F 6 

21. Imperial Library. G5 

22. Stock Exchange. E5 

23. Assay Office (Map II). F 6 

24. Araktcheev Barracks. 14 

25. Artillery Barracks, 1 Brigade... G5 

26. Artillery Barracks, 2 Brigade... E7 

27. Horse Artillery Barracks. H5 

28. Foot Artillery Barracks. G4 

29. Sharpshooters’ Barracks. G7 

30. Life Guard Barracks. H4 

31. Cosak Guard Barracks. 17 

32. Body (Imperial) Guard Barracks G4 

33. Horse Guard Barracks. E 6 

34. Gendarme Barracks. H5 

35. Grenadier Guard Barracks. F2 

36. Palace Guard Barracks. G4 

37. Ismaelovsky Regiment Barracks E7 

38. Marine Guard Barracks. E7 

39. Finland Regiment Barracks- C 6 

40. Moscow Regiment Barracks... G2 

41. Pavlovsky Regiment Barracks. F5 

42. Preobrajensky Regiment Bar¬ 

racks (1st Battalion) Map II.. F5 

43. Preobrajensky Regiment Bar¬ 

racks, other battalions.. .... H5 

44. Engineer Regiment Battalions H 6 

45. Semenor Regiment Battalions.. F7 

46. Military Telegraph Battalions.. H5 

47. Local Troops Battalions. ....... F 6 

48. Commission for Amortisation 

of Public Debts (Map II). F 6 

49. Alexander II. Cathedral. F5 

50. Kazan Cathedral. F5 

51. Cathedral of Resurrection. K4 

52. Cathedral of Transfiguration... G5 

53. Cathedral of the Trinity (Iz- 

mailor). E7 

64. Cathedral of the Trinity (St. 

Petersburg quarters). F4 


55. Cathedral of St. Alexander 


Nevsky. 17 

56. Cathedral of St. Andrew. D5 

57. St. Isaac Cathedral. E5 

58. St. Nicholas Cathedral. E7 

59. Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul F4 

60. St. Sergius Cathedral. G4 

61. St. Vladimir Cathedral. E4 

62. Ministry of Finance (Map II).. E6 
Chapter of the Orders (Map II) G4 

63. Reservoir (Chateau d’Eau)... 14 

64. Palace of Lithuania. D6 

65. Circus ..•• • • G5 

66. Club of the Nobles. F5 

67. House of the Town Command¬ 

ant. G5 

68. Conservatory. E6 

69. Orthodox Consistory. 16 

70. Imperial Control. E6 

71. Cadet School, I. E5 

72. Cadet School, II. D3 

73. Cadet School Alexandrovsky 

(Map II). G5 

Cadet School Nicholas (Map II) E6 

74. School of Pages. F6 

75. Custom House. D8 

76. Old Custom House. E4 

77. School of Hospital Nurses. G3 

78. Artillery(Michailovsky) School G4 

79. Technical Artillery School. G4 

80. Commercial School. G6 

81. Artillery (Constantinovsky) 

School. F7 

82. Law School. G4 

83. Riding School. G5 

84. School of Engineers. G5 

85. Military (Pavlovsky) School.. D3 

86. Naval School. D5 

87. Cavalry Officers’ School. 14 

88. School of Prince of Olden¬ 

burg . E8 

89. Professional School, I. D5 

90. Professional School, II. G6 

91. School for Deaf Mutes (Map II) F6 

92. Anglican Church. D6 

93. Lutheran Christ Church. F7 

94. Dutch Reform Church. F5 

95. German Reform Church. E6 

96. French Reform Church. F5 

97. Armenian Church of Resurrec¬ 


tion.BC4 

98. St. Anna Church. G4 

99. St. Catherine Armenian Church F5 

100. St. Catherine Catholic Church. D5 

101. St. Catherine Lutheran Church D5 

102. St. Mary Catholic Church. H2 

103. St. Mary Finnish Church. F5 

104. St. Mary Lutheran Church- E 

i 105. St. John Lutheran Church.... . D 6 





















































































106. 

107. 

108. 
109. 
HO. 
111 . 
112 . 

113. 

114. 

115. 

116. 

117. 

118. 

119. 

120 . 
121 . 
122 . 

123. 

124. 

125. 

126. 

127. 

128. 
129. 


130. 

131. 

132. 

133. 

134. 

135. 

136. 

137. 

138. 

139. 

140. 

141. 


St. Michael Lutheran Church. D5 j 142, 
St. Peter and Paul Lutheran 

Church. F5 143. 

Orthodox Church of Annuncia- j 144. 

tion. DE 6 [ 145. 

Orthodox Church of Apparition 146. 

of the Holy Virgin. H 6 147. 

Orthodox Church of the As- ! 148. 

cension. F 6 149. 

Orthodox Church of the As- 150. 

sumption. F 6 J 151. 

Orthodox Church of Boris and 152. 

Gleb. 16 : 153. 

Orthodox Church of Cosma 

and Demian. H4 ! 154. 

Orthodox Church of the Great 155. 

Martyr Catherine. D4 156. 

Orthodox Church of the Ex- 157. 

altation of the Holy Cross_ G7 158. 

Orthodox Church of the Inter- 159. 

cession of the Holy Virgin of 160. 

Pokrov. D7 161. 

Orthodox Church of the Pres- 162. 

entation. E3 163. 

Orthodox Church of the Res¬ 
urrection. D7 164. 

Orthodox Church of the Trans¬ 
figuration . CD3 165. 

Orthodox Church of the Trans¬ 
figuration. F2 166. 

Orthodox Church of the Holy 

Trinity. B 6 167. 

Orthodox Church of St. Cath¬ 
erine.D7, 8 168. 

Orthodox Church of the Holy 

Virgin. H4 169. 

Orthodox Church of the Holy 

Virgin of Vladimir. G 6 j 170. 

Orthodox Church of St. De¬ 
metrius . H5 171. 

Orthodox Church of St. Mat¬ 
thew.'.. E3 172. 

Orthodox Church of St. Nich¬ 
olas. FI 173. 

St. Panteleimon (Map II). 

Orthodox Church of St. Samp- 174. 

son. G2 

Orthodox Church of St. Simeon 175. 

and St. Anna. G5 

Orthodox Church (Swedish) 176. 

Map II. F5 177. 

Old Salt Storage. G5 

Hermitage...". F5 178. 

Chief Military Staff Building.. F5 179. 

Bank Note and Securities 180. 

Printing Office.. D7 181. 

Baltic Railroad Depot... E 8 182! 

P'inland Railroad Depot. H3 183! 

Irinovka Railroad Depot. K4 184! 

Sestroretzk Railroad Depot... DEI 185 

Czarskoe-Selo Railroad Depot. F7 186! 

Warsaw Railroad Depot. E 8 

Nicholas Railroad Depot. H 6 187. 

Gostiny Dvor (Bazar).P'5,6 188! 


House of the Governor of the 

City. E5 

I Gymnasium. G6 

II Gymnasium. F6 

III Gymnasium. G5 

IV Gymnasium. D5 

V Gymnasium. D7 

VI Gymnasium.FG6 

VII Gymnasium. 15 

VIII Gymnasium. D5 

IX Gymnasium. E3 

X Gymnasium. E7 

Gymnasium of Philanthropic 

Society. E7 

Alexandrovsky Gymnasium... F6 

Catherine Gymnasium.... E7 

Marunskaja Gymnasium. 16 

Peter Gymnasium. E3 

Alexander Barrack Hospital.. H6 
Alexander Female Hospital... G5 
Alexander Municipal Hospital E7 

German Hospital.CD5 

Insane (for) Hospital. G3 

Lying-in (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital. H5 

Obukhov (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital.. . . . F7 

Elizabeth (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital. D7 

Evangelic (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital. H5 

Kalinkin (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital.CD7 

Marine (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital........... D7 

St. Mary Magdalen (of Prince 

of Oldenburg) Hospital. D4 

Military (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital. G3 

Nicholas (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital. F7 

Ophthalmic (of Prince of Old¬ 
enburg) Hospital. G5 

Baronet Willie (of Prince of 

Oldenburg) Hospital. G3 

St. Olga (of Prince of Olden¬ 
burg) Hospital. 14 

St. Peter and Paul (of Prince 

of Oldenburg) Hospital. P'2 

P'oundlings’ Asylum. P'6 

Asylum for Naval Invalids (of 

Paul I). El 

City Hall (Dooma)... F5 

Alexander Institute. K4 

Anatomical Institute. H3 

Catherine Institute. G5 

Institute of the Maternity. D7 

Institute of the Blind. D7 

Institute of Civil Engineers_ F7 

Institute of Mining Engineers. C6 
Institute of Engineers of Ways 

and Communications. F6 

Elizabeth Institute. D5 

P'oresters’ Institute. G1 














































































189. Historico-Philological Institute E5 

190. Mariinsky Institute. 15 

191. Nicholas Orphan Institute.... F5 

192. Patriotic Institute. D5 

193. Pavlovsky Institute. H5 

194. Smolny Institute. K4 

195. Technological Institute. F7 

196. Veterinary Institute.GH3 

197. Xervia Institute.DE 6 

198. Military Commissariat. E 6 

199. Nemetti Garden. D 6 

200 . House of Detention. 17 

201 . Riding School of Guard Caval¬ 

ry. E5 

202. Michailovsky Riding School.. G5 

203. Alexandrovsky Market. 16 

204. Andreevsky Market. D5 

205. Apraxin Court (door). P '6 

206. Cattle Market. F 8 

207. Krougly (Round) Market. F5 

208. Litovsky Market.DE 6 

209. Miasnoi (meat) Jamskoi Mar¬ 

ket.G 6 , 7 

210 . Nikolsky Market. E7 

211 . Novo-Alexandrovsky Market. E7 

212. Poostoi (empty) Market. G4 

213. Sennoi (hay) Market. F 6 

214. Sytny Market. E3 

215. Ministry of War. E5 

216. Ministry of Justice. G5 

217. Ministry of Public Instruction. F 6 

218. Ministry of the Interior. F 6 

219. Ministry of Foreign Affairs... F5 

220. Ministryof the Imperial Domain E 6 

221. Ministry of Finance. F5 

222. Ministry of Ways and Com¬ 

munications . E7 

223. Mint. F4 

224. Monument of Alexander I. F5 

225. Monument of Alexander I. ... F3 

226. Monument of Alexander II.... E7 
Monument of Barclay de Tolli 

(Map II). F5 

227. Monument of Catherine II- F7 

Monument of Catherine II 

(Map II). 16 

Monument of Joukovsky (Map 

Ileh.) .. E5 

MonumentofGogol (Map II Go.) 

228. Monument of the Turkish War E7 
Monument of Koutousov (Map 

II). F5 

229. Monument of Krusenstern.... D5 

230. Monument of Krylov. G4 

Monument of Lermontor (Map 

II) L.:. E5 

231. Monument of Lomonosov 

(Map II). G 6 

Monument of Nicholas I (Map 

II). E 6 

Monument of Peter the Great 

(Map II).E5, G5 

Monument of Peter, Prince of 
Oldenburg (Map II). G5 


232. Monument of Ponschkin. H 6 

Monument of Przevalsky (Map 

II) Pr. E5 

233. Monument of Roumiantzov... D5 
MpnumentofSouvoroff(Map II) F4 

234. Monument of Baronet Willie.. G3 

235. Agricultural Museum . G4 

236. Museum of Alexander III. F5 

237. Zoological Museum. E5 

238. Meteorological Observatory... C 6 

239. Palace of Alexei Alexandro- 

vitch. D6 

240. Anitchkov Palace. G 6 

241. Palace (marble) of Const. Nicol. F4 

242. Palace of Kammenoi Ostrov.. El 

243. Palace of Ekateringhof.. C 8 

244. Palace of Peter the Great. G4 

245. House of Peter the Great. F4 

246. Palace of Taurida. 14 

247. Winter Palace.EF5 

248. House of the State Council.... E 6 

249. Palace of Prince of Oldenburg. F4 

250. Elaginsky Palace. Cl 

251. Palace of Michail Michailovitch 

(Map II). E5 


252. PalaceofMichail Nicolaevitch.F4,5 


Palace, New, (Old Musee) of 

Alex. Ill.,. 

Nicolai Nic. (Old Instit. of 
Xenia).BC3 

253. Petrovskv Palace. 

254. PalaceofSergei Alexandrovitch F5 

255. Palace of Vladimir Alexandro¬ 

vitch. F5 

256. Department of Police. G5 

257. Fire Brigade. F3 

258. General Post Office. E 6 

259. Prison. 114 

260. House of Preliminary Deten¬ 

tion. G4 

261. Military Prison. H3 

262. Secretaries for P'inland Office. E 6 

263. Catholic Seminary.DE 6 

264. Orthodox Seminary. 17 

265. Senate. E5 

266. Free Economic Society. F7 

267. Holy Synod. E5 

268. Synagogue. D 6 

269. Telegraph . E 6 

270. Alexander Theater. G 6 

271. Kamenno-Ostrovsky Theater. Ill 

272. Hermitage Theater. F5 

273. Mariinsky Theater. E 6 

274. Michailovsky Theater. F5 

Panaevsky (Map II)... E5 

275. Lesser Theater (Malyi). F 6 

276. Theatrical School (Imperial 

Management of Theaters) . G 6 

j 277. Central Treasury. G4 

Treasury (Map II). E 6 

278. District Court. G4 

j 279. Provincial Court. E 6 

280. University. E5 

| 281. Gas Works. F 8 





























































































» 

I 


1 











X 






35 



Copyright lqoi , by Underwood &“ Underwood 


ENGRAVED BY BORMAY A CO. N. Y. 


Patented U. S. AA ugust 21 , iqoo. Patented Great Britain , March 22 , IQOO. 

Patented France , March 26, /9C0. S. G D. G. Switzerland, Patent Nr. 21^211. 

Patents applied /or in other countries. * 


EXPLANATIONS OF MAP SYSTEM. 

(1) The red lines on this map mark out the territory shown In the respective stereo* 
graphs. 

( 2 ) The numbers In circles refer to stereographs correspondingly numbered. 

( 3 ) The apex ( ), or point from which two lines branch out, indicates the place 

from which the view was taken, viz., the place from which we look out, In the stereograph, 
over the territory between the two lines. 

( 4 ) The branching lines Indicate the limits of the stereographed scene, viz., 

the limits of our vision on the right and left when looking at the stereograph. 

( 5 ) The stereograph number without a circle Is frequently placed at the end of each 
branching line (example(S)<^^.|£)to help locate quickly the space shown In a stereograph. 

( 6 ) Sometimes the encircled number Is placed where it can be seen better and 9 
zigzag line runs to the apex to which it refers. 






















































































































' ■ "■ 





















. 



\ 

t 


















































f 























Ale xdndfpv 


'v^yzVeA:h ka-oia 


Mistol ova 


Puutolova 


Ossinovets' 


Batcha** 

Dssionoi'i 


Jl&telo 
!<i iki 


tort jlPd vXh'fl k 

/u ’iy r \ [/ ---=d 

\ \ / -Korisi 
StCu'^plckaia ( 
a ’*Zahi a n iloi'ka. 


Portovaia 


Novosselki 


Vdrreriei 


rgolov 


'aganova 


Babina 


IKabitolova s 


1st rorJ 


a( 2 A’oj 4 


ybugloip} 

I Lac X 

uiolchvic A/* 


u ia 


“* Bougri, 

'irchberg / * 

O V- 

? argolovo s 


rougareii 


|Kangakoula ' 

XKalpalo 

keleva 


^^jMjrncva 

Gaabki Romanmdca 


Gorskaiu’ 


9 °snot\ (i 
f Moghycu 
PoustochkaHZ: 


Oserk, 


itc/id<jlova 


Bolch. 


& Route/ 


Kolommgi 


'.Lissii 


KonnaTa\ 

^ Mai. o’ 


ii\Ou<lialnci 


/Buie ile 


rii utlno 


5e ryad&xi 


'hkin Maiak 


=Lakhta-_ 


:aia 


KronSQftt': 


\ Povaut 
Chi: re\ine (ic vka 


\Seltsu 


Xjkol. Kolonua 


,Lac . 
'v~u.sk 


SchlusselbouT: 

Ru batskamjj] 


Star a. 


Oranienbau 


I Lac Kprkinskdie 


Tchonmia 

Riatchka 


Prim I akovlev 


Vir / 

Razmiteievo/ 


•hkin a 


D. Dou ndafi&l 
Col. Ora n u 

ba u m fsJ/- 

Stat.Star^PeterJw^^ 

TroiteKaui^yX 

° Rapfpolova 

Sack ino er 

/ Touiouzi .—K 

f c Baling^nsky \ I 

Porzolova /Aumojl 

° r - si /if 5 


JtLaU 


Marina 


Ozerki 


lexandria: 


’hoit rafova 


/Ma nouclikino 


H \ 

Bplo,j\a m akiuaf 

= tsA^\ s ’ na 


\r kouli 


/ Pte. \ 
Manonchkim 


Marais de 
Biniavinsky 


Slon.d.PUrr* It Or. 

Lac Krasnoie 


Vyborgsk Doub, 


* V ,v\ 

S.RylntahiM^r, 


iMoacou 
\Doubrovka 


^Koujixtchino 
* >V (In c > i gads- 

\")—r 


.igovo 


7 ag)issetka+ 


skoi 


Govbounk i 

// Star \ 


’.umenka 


Fci'viiryZ 

Briguetprie' 


Pastoloi-a 


Pit vouch kina 


’ KelkiUvo 


'Voznesjfzn shift 


yCunsfhnti 

yekuMij 


1 Casernes . 
anovskaia 


Choluchari 


Dogoi'dlouchka 


ungorova 


Oust. Toma 


Pikko 


Kftal/oni 


porskaiiv 
loykkoulovc/ 


\ \ \ Palcrovska icuP , 

CoJonielvh. inf. IK 

I y-,\ • r r 7 VV^ 

IkCoiyonie Ish. sitp. \\ 

P’ / \ j Perevosy 
)ulova\< , , S 

Wos/c ressenskaia 

v * 


) / Lipitars, 

Jlikha iloiskoii 

1 Gladino 4 t ?r - t u 

(s- ^ riV.ir tRoiXjha Moukholot< 


luiianka 


XikLlaiet skaia 


ENVIRONS 


l kJIaUu 
kaia l 


Vousotbkuii' 


ST.PETERSBURG 

Echelle de 1:380.000 


Ripen 


/Mou rela 
Karvala a 


fPtrrliapni 

Vaimikoula 


~~Stcpa \ 
novnkoie 1 


Gloukhova 


Samsaonov/ti 


V^izvne 
\lli ) 


).4 U’}‘inUrovskoi4 


\.Nikolskoit*£ 
\Ouchakopcb 
Koszlovo v 


GolodoukhoC 


’Pendovi 


*Muitlliia 

Skvoritsi. 


Ttarskuia. 
Slavianka/ 


Kiloiuet res 


j^l^pchina 


/fSiminova 


y.abhi 


ight iQOi, by Undrrvuoca 6r* Undcr~wooJ 


■NjRAVED BY 30 RMAY 4 CO. 


Patented U. S. AA ugutt 2 t , tqoo. Patented Great Britain , March 22 , iqoo. 

Patented France , March 2 b, iqoo. S. G. D. G. Switzerland , cQd Patent Nr. 2 tjn. 

Patents applied for i n other countries. 


EXPLANATIONS OF MAP SYSTEM. 

(1) The numbers In red refer to stereographs correspondingly numbered. „ 

(2) The rectangles In red, ( Q ), show the boundaries of the maps “st. Petersburg ( » “ st. Petersburg, Central Part,’ and Peterhof.* 

























































































































































XrTA cSV' ,l S‘ l « 


ST.NPErERSBURG 


Priatau 


gl.SteT 

lather. 


Strjhievskaia 


rltynotc/i 


(MarssovoVe 


V de Mars 

MUrchd Pol£) 


jeatre 


Konioucheu !’ 1 


,J »Ni 

'VrAlex.II 


a~SimeonV 


S intcoHooakaiu 


i Reform. 


,/Oominandj 

/(U.VU1./7/ 


uitut! 


VjL/o uvcrneun 

la Ville^ N g!‘‘5oro^> 
\ stcT .noie >, 1 /^ 


K rfitsUuH 


jv^Semtr 


istan^5-V 


^liniat.d.lig. 


7^ Pt. 
d.l.Bunque, 


[dare r 
Liindra* 


'Taaerne d\ 
Chevaliera 
i Gardes 


; P0^.1.Po8te V| 
Bains 
,VorommA; 


Liinennyv 

i Pierre) 


J'xX Minis tXw’i 
.TdWnsir/PubGyKpi 


-^cad.Milit.i 
(-dp. Droit 


id a 7 n “; chiTdfe' 
Lithujufj 
Inidoy/ (Prisoty 


x-^'Trikorerie 


J v Ab&oiii])tiou 


k ''Pl.du\ 

Theatre 


pfv . K . rioukov & 


Pt.Vozuess. 


Idiuailovsky Proap. 


Tsamko-Selsky Pro^> 


Conservatoire 


Copyright iQOi, by Under-wood &* Underwood. 


ENGRAVED BY BORMAY A CO. N- >■ 


Patented U. S. A ., A ugust 2T y iQOO. Patented Great Britain , March 22, jqoo. 

Patented France , March 26, jqoo* S. G. D. G. Switzer land,\^pPatent Nr. 2 i, 2 ii. 

Patents applied /or in other countries. 


th 


EXPLANATIONS OF MAP SYSTEM. 

(1) The red lines on this map mark out the territory shown In the respective stereographs. 

(2) The numbers In circles refer to stereographs correspondingly numbered. 

(3) The apex ( < ), or point from which two lines branch out, Indicates the place from which the view was taken, viz., the place from which we look out, In 
ie stereograph, over the territory between the two lines. 

. •»_ the otRrnnnranhhf! arsine .. i _ the iimitc ri Y mis tflslrn n n th« rlrtht and if 


tereograph, over the territory Detween xne two nnoa. 

(4) The branching lines ( ) Indicate the limits of the etereographed scene, viz., the limits of our vision on the right and left when looking at the 

stereography ^ number without a circle Is frequently placed at the end of each branching line (example ©<^> to h «“ > ,OCBt * qulcl ' l >' the * p * ca 

ZD 

shown In a stereograph. . , d wh ere It can be seen better and a zigzag line runs to the apex to which It refers. 

(6) Sometimes the encirc e u , s || m i;ed, Its !oca»,or Is designated by the number of the stereograph In a circle without the branching 

(7) Where the field of view In the stenographed scene 


lines 





















































































































































ST. PETERSBURG 




<inaia 


l’i> lit, M u • 
r.-trov-^kr;; $ 


i!;u rariTi^s ky 
*eii;k .GoTiiaTi 


Jin skala 


PI. 'troll> knift: 


. P t nEr ittcJ>MtM 

s-'gprr Sj; hlTiaae1 l7 c r yriaa^^ 


Smoln 


fs/:a ia 


\F[fu rr/ffc^ 


\MaM3ovoie , I 

Pole) Panteleon 


; 9 JUL-J 


rJJasspi 


~Bolutnaia 


'- Mai—Itali a nska, 


Smolenskoie 




IlrAntfcliko' 


^»**£r 


/ n a’m i c\is k a i u/k\(T( 




PtJ Offitdiei 


fpuknj 






BaraqOesI 


(iiYlerjT 

(Tstroi 


!h~ri/.oiy 


i— 1 i i ^i Rotarlz rnrPolka\ 

t-Rota-l-Pnfka^ty ■ .. A 1 , 84 -*, 

I \y - I OJ •) til M i- 1 2UGIJH] U 

"l rakhrzzi^i z=g}£ 

i^-^-r —'icraji 133 3 ._' j] 


’arnnojJuP 


.rland&kai%jj 




- v v - u — 

s^DMVjj.bo' 


k/ fm 


Hospice 

Nicolas 


.skatar 


Yolkovo 


' Ttrof.ajili 

I i 


Mitrofan 

X^—\ Moskc v 
r \ J=S a1t) 


i skaiti 
ava , 


Ietnelv 


EXPLANATIONS OF MAP SYSTEM. 


(1) The red line, on this mao mark out the territory shown ^ 

(2) The numbers in circles refer to stereographs correspond * > ina , cat es the P'»<” v 

(3) The ape* < , or point from which two'Ho..' ^ ’ the twC lines. 

- - hich - e ,o ° k ° ut - the thV; r mlt . y of the ^ 0^.0 sen., »*.,», 

( 4 ) The branching lines - lno c 

ion looking at the stereograph. 


hich th© view was taken, viz., the place 
limits of our vision on the right and left 


(5) The stereograph number without a circle Is 1 
quickly the space shown In a stereograph. 

( 6 ) Sometimes the encircled number Is placed 

(7) Where the field of view In the stereographed 
circle without the branching lines. 

(8* Many of the stereographs of St. Petersburg c 


—V _- JO 

>quently placed at the end of each branchine line example to help locate 

where It can be seen better and a zigzag lire runs to apex to which It refers, 
icene Is limited, Its location is designated by the number of the stereograph In a 

1 be located more satisfactorily on tht map “ 3t. Potoraburg, Central Part.' 1 








































































































































































































































































































































































































COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY* 


There is something about seeing: these 
photographs through the stereoscope that 
greatly enhances their interest and their 
value* When one looks at an ordinary 
picture of Palestine with the naked eye, 
one feels himself to be still in America, or 
wherever he may be at the time* Through 
the stereoscope, with the outer world shut 
off by the hood, one feels himself to be look¬ 
ing right at the scene itself* 

(Signed) WALTER L* HERVEY, Ph* D* 

(Ex-President Teachers' College, N. Y.) 


*/ * 3 1 








STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, 

New Pal tz 9 N. Y. 

MYRON T. SCUDDER, A. B., A. M., Rutgers, Yale, Principal. 

December 23, 1901. 

The stereographs and thirty stereoscopes 
purchased of Underwood & Underwood by this 
school are in constant use in every department 
of the school. They are used in connection with 
literature, geography, ancient and modern lan¬ 
guages, as well as with children in the primary 
and intermediate grades. They are also used 
by the teacher of experimental psychology, 
who finds them exceedingly valuable in mak¬ 
ing certain experiments in connection with 
studies of sight, time reaction, introspection and 
emotions. There is scarcely a department in 
school that does not find these a great help, and 
now that we know their value, we should be 
quite at a loss to know how to get along 
without them. 

I take pleasure in testifying to the value of 
these articles in school work and would be 
gratified if I might be the means of saying 
something that would induce others to intro¬ 
duce them into their schools, be they day or 
Sunday schools, or into the family. 

(Signed) MYRON T. SCUDDER, 

Principal. 


















































- 



% 











* 



































